Johanna Larsson beats Sesil Karatantcheva to reach the main round – Toray Pan Pacific Open 2012
World number 86, Johanna Larsson, bounced back a set down to beat the 23-year-old Kazakh, Sesil Karatantcheva, in the final qualifying round of the Toray Pan Pacific Open on Saturday. Final scores registered by the 24-year-old
Swede were 1-6, 7-5, 6-3 and she took two hours and 11 minutes to accomplish the task.
The 90th ranked Kazakh defeated the Swede in the opening qualifying round of the Wimbledon Championships in London in 2010. However, the 24-year-old Swede took a revenge of that loss earlier this year during the first
round of the Abierto Mexicano at Acapulco. This triumph took the head-to-head lead of the 86th ranked Swede to 2-1.
Karatantcheva was absolutely cruising along in the opening set. She clasped two breakthroughs at the start of the match and didn’t make a mistake on her serve to take a resounding lead of 4-0. A swap of breakpoints kept the lead
intact for the 23-year-old Kazakh who registered an easy serve hold to round off the opening set proceedings with just seven games into the match.
Larsson started the second set poorly; lost the opening serve game but won the following four games courtesy a double breakthrough that helped her to regroup and regain confidence. She was breezing past her opponent before faltering
miserably in the seventh game that donated a breakpoint to the Kazakh.
Both players looked set to play a tie-breaker round by the end of the 11th game as there were no breakpoints witnessed for the last four games. However, the Swede couldn’t perform the basics right in the start of the
12th game. She did well to bounce back and deuce the scores but couldn’t hold her foe from winning a breakpoint that enforced the final set into play.
Larsson held her serve in the first game of the deciding set. It was followed up with five breakpoints in succession that were won in the ratio of 3:2 to the Swede. She held her lead until the end courtesy serve holds and booked
a spot in the main round contest and plays Swiss professional, Romina Oprandi, in the first round.
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