Greta Arn battles past Elena Vesnina to advance into the quarters of the Internazionali BNL d’Italia
The Hungarian Greta Arn rallied past Russian Elena Vesnina in a three set thriller on Thursday. She registered a 3-6, 7-6(3), 7-6(3) victory over the Russian to advance into the quarter-finals of the 2011 Internazionali BNL d’Italia, a WTA Premier 5 even held in Rome, Italy.
World number 48 Arn downed the world number 41 Vesnina in a tiresome three hours and eleven minutes match. It was their first meeting and Arn took the lead in her head-to-head series against the Russian by 1-0.
24-year-old Russian stormed into the opening set and held her serve in the first game by her quick forehands and backhands. Later she exchanged a break in the third and fourth game and broke the Hungarian’s serve again in the sixth game to eventually seal the set by winning six games to three.
The 32-year-old Hungarian re-focused her strategy in the second set and despite losing her serve in the third game, she snatched the break back and dragged the set to tie-breaker. Arn dominated in it to eventually clinch the set with a 7-6(3) win.
Arn carried her winning momentum into final set and held her opening serve spectacularly. She then exchanged three breaks to drag the decider into the tie-breaker where she prevailed to win the set with a 7-6(3) score line again.
Up next for the Hungarian is the fourth seed Li Na. Chinese Li trashed Australian Jarmila Gajdosova with a breadstick to reach this spot. The Hungarian had a perfect start to the season as she won the title at Auckland after trashing second seeded Belgian Yanina Wickmayer. She carried her winning ways in other tournaments as well and made quarter-final berths at Acapulco, Monterrey and Fes before arriving at this clay court tournament. Arn upset eleventh seeded Russian Svetlana Kuznetsova in her opening round and overwhelmed Italian wild card Alberta Brianti in the second round.
A former top twenty-five, Vesnina on the other side of net had a mediocre season so far but she raised her level of game at Charleston where she reached the final before losing to top seeded Dane Caroline Wozniacki. The Russian re-kindled her spark at Foro Italico as she triumphed over Austrian qualifier Tamira Paszek and eighth seeded Polish Agnieszka Radwanska convincingly in the first two rounds.
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