Johanna Larsson outdoes Vera Dushevina; races in to the quarterfinals – Collector Swedish Open 2011
Johanna Larsson of Sweden continued her smooth progress through the Collector Swedish Open with a three-set win over Vera Dushevina of Russian in the second round of the tournament, at Bastad, Sweden.
The 22-year-old Swede from Helsingborg was in a shipshape form and eased to a 6(4)-7, 6-2, 6-2 victory, taking two hours and seventeen minutes of play.
The Swede knew that she had been taken to the brink by an incredible talent. A talent who was in cruise control at 2-1 in the second set, but imploded to lose four games in a row. And by the time she regrouped herself in the third
set, Larsson was back on track.
Larsson had been the more dominant performer, who did not lose a single set before coming into the second round, while her opponent had to face a pretty tough obstacle in the first round but she handled it so masterly that it appeared
the Russian’s mesmerising spell would continue, especially when she won the first set pretty authoritatively, but unfortunately she could not repeat the same feat and lost the remaining sets in a similar way.
Although, Larsson had some bad luck in the first set tie-break, losing it with a 6(4)-7 score line, she quickly recovered from a break down in the second and was always in a cruise control by maintaining a consistent speed throughout
the match.
Dushevina, who was playing the Swede for the first time in her career, managed to capitalise on Larsson’s errors to take a lead in the first set, while a similar aberration in the penultimate game of the second set gave the Swede
an equal lead.
But despite the defeat in the second set, Dushevina was executing an array of winners as well as playing effectively at the net. She broke Larsson in the fourth game of the third set before holding on to her serve for a 2-1 lead.
But Larsson replied brilliantly as she won five successive games to book her spot in the quarterfinals of the tournament.
Emerging victorious against the Russian, Larsson now leads their head-to-head score to 1-0 and now advances into the quarterfinal of the tournament where she will meet fourth-seeded Lourdes Dominguez Lino of Spain, who ousted compatriot
Arantxa Parra Santonja in straight sets to stay on track for a title here at Bastad, Sweden.
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