Jelena Jankovic breezes into third round with a breadstick in Miami
World number 7, Serb Jelena Jankovic destroyed world number 63, Romanian Monica Niculescu in straight sets. She earned an astonishing 6-3, 6-1 victory over the Romanian to advance to the third round at the 2011 Sony Ericsson Open
on Thursday.
The 6th seeded Serb is in great shape as she made a semi-final berth at Dubai and Doha and reached the final at Monterrey before losing to 2nd seeded Russian wild card entrant, Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova in three sets.
Regardless of losing in the third round at Indian Wells, she entered this competition in full confidence after getting a first round bye for being a seeded player.
Jankovic dumped the Romanian with a breadstick and extended her lead in their head-to-head series by 4-0.
The former world number one displayed her tremendous skills in the opening set as she held her serve in the first game spectacularly. She then broke the Romanian serve in the next game and took the lead to 2-0. Niculescu quickly
snatched the brake back in the proceeding game and held her serve later to level the score 2-2. After the 23-year-old Romanian held her serve to level the scores at 3-3, Jankovic went on fire and won the next three games plausible including one with a break
of Niculescu’s serve to clinch the set with a 6-3 win.
Though the 26-year-old Serb double faulted three times, she had a much better first serve percentage of 75 percent as compared to Romanian’s 56 percent and she earned an impressive 67 percent win on it.
The charged Serb improved her performance in the second set as she only lost one game. Though she had a lower first serve share, she registered an amazing 88 percent win on it and converted three out of four breakpoint opportunities
to her advantage to win the set with a 6-1 score line.
Overall, the Romanian had a slightly higher first serve share in the match but she didn’t take any advantage on it as she registered a poor 44 percent win on it. Though she converted the only opportunity to her advantage but she
failed to save five out of six breakpoints and thus lost the match with a huge margin. Niculescu had a convincing winning record for her last ten matches but still lost against the top ten.
She will next face 32nd seeded Czech Klara Zakopalova who reached this spot after dumping British Elena Baltacha in straight sets as well.
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