Galina Voskoboeva ousts Jie Zheng in round two – Estoril Open 2012
Galina Voskoboeva of Kazakhstan trashed the 33rd ranked Chinese superstar, Jie Zheng, in the second round of the Estoril Open on Wednesday. She completed the triumph in an hour and 17 minutes; registering a thumping
straight sets 6-4, 6-1 triumph to open her account against Zheng.
Previously, it was the Chinese fifth seed contestant who had won a couple of clashes. She won the first round matches in Hyderabad Open 2005 and Sony Ericsson Open 2008. A psychological pressure was on the 49th ranked
Kazakh but she responded brilliantly.
The 27-year-old Kazakh was very complimentary towards her opponent in a post-match interview and stated, “Zheng Jie is a great player and I was expecting a tough match. It was really windy, rainy and cold in the first set, and
I was expecting they would stop the match but they didn't, so it was tough conditions. But I've had some very good preparation recently and was much focused today."
The match started in emphatic fashion for the Kazakh who won first four points to register an easy serve hold and continued the trend; winning four points on Zheng’s serve to take an early lead in the set. She built a strong foundation
and continued to exert pressure on her rival; taking a resounding lead of 3-0.
Chinese fifth seed was missing several shots and merely converted her first serves. She dropped another breakpoint and sunk further to a trail of 0-4. She did well to win one break back in the fifth game and diminish the trail.
In a ‘do or die’ game, Zheng won a breakpoint that kept the set alive. She just needed to hold serve and level the scores but she failed to do so and flushed her timely comeback. Trailing one set down, the Chinese contested looked
low on confidence.
The second set started in a similar fashion as the first. First five games were bagged by the Kazakh contestant featuring two back-to-back breakpoints. She spared just one game for her opponent before confirming her spot in the
last eight.
It was the second upset of the day. Earlier, the Spanish defending champion, Anabel Medina Garrigues, bowed down to the 66th ranked compatriot, Silvia Soler-Espinosa. The trend didn’t end over here. Later in the day,
Italian tennis ace, Karin Knapp, ousted the second seed Russian contestant, Maria Kirilenko, to complete the hat-trick of upsets.
Voskoboeva squares-off against Karin Knapp in the quarter-final.
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