Jelena Jankovic breezes into the third round of Internazionali BNL d’Italia
Fifth seeded Serb Jelena Jankovic slaughtered Czech Lucie Safarova with a bagel at 2011 Internazionali BNL d’Italia, a clay court tournament held in Rome, Italy. She registered a 6-0, 6-3 win over the 24-year-old Czech to advance
into the third round on Wednesday.
Facing each other for the sixth time, the former world number one Jankovic took revenge from her loss to the Czech at Madrid two weeks ago by overpowering her with a bagel at Foro Italico. She has now extended her lead in the head-to-head
series against Safarova by 5-1.
Ranked ninth in the WTA Premier rankings, Jankovic hasn’t won any title this season but she made semi-final berths at Dubai, Doha and Charleston. She also reached the final at Monterrey before losing to second seeded Russian Anastasia
Pavlyuchenkova in troublesome three sets. She seemed to re-kindle her spark in this $2,000,000 event and trashed Safarova in just seventy-six minutes.
26-year-old displayed extra-ordinary skills in the opening set and unleashed flurry of groundstrokes to reel off first six games in a row. She clinched the set with a bagel with her flawless performance as she faced zero breakpoint
and converted three out of six breakpoint opportunities to her advantage.
The Serb kept momentum rolling into the final set and despite clobbering more double faults and unforced errors, she broke Safarova’s serve once to seal the set with a convincing 6-3 score line. Jankovic produced a higher first
serve share of 71 percent as opposed to Czech’s 61 percent and registered an amazing 75 percent win on it.
A former top twenty-five player, Safarova has been in good form as well as she made a final berth at Kuala Lumpur and recently reached the quarter-finals at Madrid. She earned a straight set victory in her opening round match against
Japanese Kimiko Date Krumm but the world number 32 was outclassed in this match.
"I got my revenge as one would call it," Jankovic said. "She played really well last week and I was expecting a tough match. I was prepared. I served well against her last week, but I wasn't able to break her even though I had
a lot of chances. This time I managed to do that. I also didn't give away many free points. She gave me a lot of trouble in Madrid but this week I did better."
The beaming Serb, who was a two time champion here in 2007 and 2008 and a finalist last year, will next face the Spaniard Anabel Medina Garrigues. The Spaniard upset ninth seeded French Marion Bartoli in straight sets to reach
this spot.
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