Heather Watson and Anastasiya Yakimova advance into the final qualifying round at the Estoril Open
Number six seed Heather Watson of Great Britain crushed Polish tennis player Katarzyna Piter 6-4, 6-4 on Sunday to book her place in the final round of 2011 Estoril Open qualification tournament held in Portugal.
Watson is still new to the Women’s Tennis Association arena. She has given reasonable performances on the ITF circuit but is yet to prove her metal at the WTA level. The 18-year-old tennis pro started the year well with a quarterfinal appearance at Auckland however since then she has struggled to find her peak form as she failed to reach past the first round of any WTA tournament she has participated in.
In her first match at the qualification round, Watson eased past Croat Karolina Sprem in less than 1 hour and 20 minutes. She certainly seemed to have carried over that winning momentum into her second round match as well as she secured a comfortable win in straight sets. She will be hoping to maintain her good form as she takes on a lot higher ranked players at the red clay courts tournament. Watson’s next round opponent will be Austrian Tamira Paszek who defeated German Laura Siegemund 7-5, 6-4
The American looked to dominate right from the start of the match. She used her forehand and backhand shots to great effect and made the challenger run for her money. In the first set, she broke the serve in third game to dent her opponent’s confidence levels. She then added to his opponent’s frustration by holding on to her serve games quite comfortably. Watson claimed the opener with the game score-line of 6-4.
The second set also followed a similar pattern. Watson took complete advantage of her strong position in the contest by playing her natural game freely. Her serve was powerful and on-target as she fired 6 aces in the set. She made the crucial serve break in ninth game of the set to ensure a straight set victory for her in a match that lasted for 1 hour and 44 minutes.
Piter on the other struggled to time the ball and committed a number of unforced errors throughout the match. The Polish had her chances to dictate terms during the contest but her poor shot execution always meant that she was fighting a losing battle. In a post match interview she expressed her disappointment at an ordinary performance.
In another second round match Anastasiya Yakimova destroyed American Lindsay Lee-Waters 6-1, 6-1. Kazakhstani tennis-pro Sesil Karatantcheva also reached the final round after she came back from a set deficit to defeat Arantxa Rus 5-7, 6-4, 6-2.
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