Jie Zheng overwhelms Andrea Hlavackova to get a quarter-final berth – AEGON Classic 2012
Chinese veteran, Jie Zheng, carried on with her sublime run of form to earn a place in the quarter-final rounds of the AEGON Classic. She outplayed the hard-hitting Czech tennis ace, Andrea Hlavackova, in the third round clash
on Thursday, wrapping up the contest in straight sets, 6-4, 6-1, comprehensively.
It was the first ever face-off between these two competitors and Zheng had no real difficulties at all to get under the skin of the Czech right away. Fierce competition was witnessed between the two rivals at the beginning but
the Chinese qualifier gradually built her pace to take the better of Hlavackova in the later parts of the match. She was right on top of the Czech opponent in the second set and drove her out of the tournament with convincing authority.
"I'm so happy to be in the quarterfinals," Zheng said in her post match reviews. "I have played five singles matches already this week, and doubles also, so I'm a little bit tired. Sometimes playing a lot of matches is good and
sometimes it's not! But I'm happy I made it through today and I just need to focus on the next match right now. I had to enter six weeks before, and at the time I was practicing in China and forgot! I wanted to come here anyway though, even if it meant playing
in the qualifying. Before Wimbledon it's only two weeks of grass court tournaments."
25-year-old Hlavackova was outplayed by the Chinese rival in all segments of the game. She could barely clinch 26 first serve points in the entire matchup, whereas Zheng converted 40 out of her 60 points en route to victory. The
Chinese qualifier nailed three out of 10 break opportunities to get the better of Hlavackova, who utterly failed to register even a single break point in the contest, frittering away 11 priceless chances to finish on the losing side in the end.
Zheng will square off against the fourth seed Italian tennis ace, Roberta Vinci, in the quarter-final round of the AEGON Classic on Friday. Vinci dumped the unseeded Brit, Heather Watson, in the third round clash a day ago.
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