Jelena Jankovic defeats Lourdes Lino; advances at Whirlpool Monterrey Open
World number 6, Serbian Jelena Jankovic defeated world number 48, Spanish Lourdes Dominguez Lino in straight sets at the 2011 Whirlpool Abierto Monterrey on Wednesday.
The 26-years-old Serb has performed well this season. She was ousted in the second round at Australian Open but reached the semi-finals at Dubai and Doha before losing to the eventual champions. The 29-years-old Spaniard, on the
other hand also had a similar winning record. She was ousted in early rounds at Auckland, Sydney and Australian Open. Later she re-formed herself to win the title at Bogota and reached the quarter-finals at Acapulco.
The nervy Jankovic lost her opening serve by double faulted three times at the start of the match. However, she soon bounced back and breaking Lino’s serve four times and firing 2 aces, the Serb won the first set convincingly with
a 6-4 score line. The Spaniard tried her best too as she converted three opportunities to her advantage but she lagged in her first serve percentage registering a meagre 46 percent as opposed to Jankovic’s 55 percent.
The Serb then cruised to win the match in 88 minutes as she displayed her tremendous skills to destroy Lino with a breadstick. She committed 3 double faults again and had a lower first serve percentage but she earned an amazing
68 percent win on it. Despite her flaws, she saved all the three break points and broke Spaniard’s serve twice.
After winning this match, Jankovic extends her head-to-head lead against Lino to 3-0.
Talking about her match against Lino, Jankovic said, "Today was tough. My opponent played very well and hit a lot of slices. I feel good about my game though. I only came here a few days ago and the conditions are different, but
I'm happy to win. I enjoyed it out here"
In the next round, she will face Austrian Sybille Bammer who reached this spot after overwhelming Czech Andrea Hlavackova in a three-set thriller. The Serb can easily overcome her if she maintains her form.
On another court, Belarusian Olga Govortsova defeated Russian Alla Kudryavtseva in a three-set thriller. She earned a 6-3, 4-6, 6-0 win over the Russian.
Kudryavtseva ran out of gas in the final set to lose the match with a bagel. Govortsova on the other hand committed seven double faults but outplayed the Russian with eight breaks.
She has reached the quarter-finals where she will face 8th seeded Slovenian Polona Hercog.
Tags: