Jarmila Groth advances to the third round at the Sony Ericsson Open
28th seeded Australian Jarmila Groth earned a victory over Kazakh Yaroslava Shvedova when the latter was forced to retire due to an injury on Friday. The Australian has advanced to the third round at Key Biscayne in
Miami.
Ranked 29th in the world, Groth had lost to the Kazakh in their last duel at French Open’s clay court. The Australian now leads their head-to-head by 2-1.
Both 23-year-old stars gave an amazing display of tennis in the opening set and converted many breakpoint opportunities to their advantages. The Australian was on savage mode at the beginning as she won the first three games through
her astonishing agility. Later Shvedova held her serves lowering the trail to 2-4. In the games that followed, Groth exchanged breaks twice and eventually won the set with a 6-4 score line.
Groth, who recently made a semi-final berth at Kuala Lumpur, was leading 3-1 when the Kazakh was forced to retire due to injury allowing Groth to advance in the event.
Groth will next face 3rd seeded Russian Vera Zvonareva who reached this spot after bouncing back against her in-form countrywoman Dinara Safina by a 3-6, 6-3, 6-2 score line.
On another court, Russian Ekaterina Makarova also advanced to the next round. Makarova upset her 22nd seeded countrywoman Alisa Kleybanova in straight sets.
The world number 39, Makarova lost to Kleybanova in her previous meeting but she overpowered the world number 26 Kleybanova in this match to extend her lead in their head to head series by 3-1.
The 21-year-old Kleybanova, who had a convincing season after making a semi-final berth at Sydney and quarter-final berth at Dubai, made a great start in the opening set. She held her serve in the first game plausibly and broke
Makarova’s serve in the proceeding game. After she was leading 4-1, Makarova re-formed and made a comeback in the game. She kept her remaining serves and broke Kleybanova’s serve twice to clinch with a 7-5 win.
The 22-year-old Makarova improved her gameplay in the second set as she fired two ferocious aces and had a much better first serve share of 60 percent as opposed to Kleybanova’s 48 percent. Though she failed to save the only breakpoint
she conceded, the lower ranked Russian converted three out of four breakpoint opportunities to her advantage to win the set with a 6-3 score line.
Makarova will next face 15th seeded French Marion Bartoli who reached this spot after downing Japanese Ayumi Morita in three sets.
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