Hlavackova/Hradecka stun the French Open champions in the quarter-final – Wimbledon Champions 2012
A stunning outcome was witnessed in the Women’s Doubles at the Wimbledon Championships on Thursday, with this year’s French Open doubles champions, Sara Errani and Roberta Vinci suffering a straight sets defeat at the hands of
the Czechs, Andrea Hlavackova and Lucie Hradecka. The sixth seeded tandem took just 61 minutes to overwhelm the number two seed Italian pair in straight sets, 6-3, 6-4, to earn a spot in the semi-finals of the Grand Slam event in London, England.
It was a fairly poised contest but sublime game play of Hlavackova and Hradecka prevailed over the experience of the Italians. The Czech team exhibited great coordination throughout the contest, exploiting the narrow gaps between
Errani and Vinci at will and firing assertive winners to come out as the winners. The Czechs coughed eight unforced errors and four double faults in the matchup but kept winning crucial points on regularity to take the better of their superior seeded rivals.
Errani and Vinci had a below par first serve precision of just 53 per cent in the contest and it yielded them 14 out of 23 points, whilst the sixth seeded tandem clinched 23 out of 36 points on the first serves. Hlavackova and
Hradecka crafted six break points and converted five of them and in reply, the Italian second seeds could come up with three serve breaks, eventually finishing on the losing side in the end.
The opening set witnessed an early exchange of break points from both sides, taking the scores to 2-2. A regular game was followed in the next three games before Hlavackova and Hradecka delivered a lethal blow in the eighth game
to break into a 5-3 lead. They further went on to seal the first set at 6-3, getting one up in the contest.
The Czech contenders carried on their winning impetus in the following set as well, breaking the Italians in the very first game and holding their own serve to lead 2-0 early. Errani and Vinci broke their opponents in the fourth
and seventh games, only to be broken in the very next games on both occasions to fall back to a 4-5 deficit. Hlavackova and Hradecka held their final serve of the match and concluded the emphatic victory at 6-4 to enter the semi-final draw in style.
The Czech tandem will face the other unseeded Italian duo of Flavia Pennetta and Francesca Schiavone in the semi-final brawl on Friday afternoon.
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