Kaia Kanepi sails past Liana Ungur in the opening round – OrtoLaakarit Open 2011
Top seeded Estonian Kaia Kanepi drilled through Romanian Liana Unger with a bagel at the OrtoLaakarit Open 2011, an ITF Women’s Circuit event taking place at the hard courts in Helsinki, Finland. She barely sweated to register
a 6-0, 6-3 success over the Romanian to secure a second round spot on Wednesday.
Ranked 34th in the Sony Ericsson WTA Premier rankings, Kanepi required one hour and fourteen minutes crippling the Romanian, ranked 304 spots below her, on their first encounter. After earning this victory by bagging
nine straight games, she not only advanced into the semi-finals but also inched towards her maiden year-to-date title.
26-year-old Estonian breezed in the opening set to pull out a bagel in less than half an hour. She swiped in entire serves without facing any breakpoint and capitalised on three out of seven breakpoint opportunities to her advantage.
Spicing the set further, Kanepi clobbered a higher first serve share of 68 percent as compared to Ungur’s 60 percent and registered a fascinating 85 percent win on it.
The blooming Estonian kept momentum flowing into the final set and quickly wiped out first three games before Ungur could come on score sheet for the first time. She then pocketed remaining serves and clinched the set with a 6-3
win. Kanepi brushed off both breakpoints came across and converted one out of two breakpoint chances to her advantage. In addition to this, she earned a spectacular 88 percent win on her slightly lower first serve share of 57 percent.
Overall, the high flying Estonian displayed top notch performance and cruised into the round of sixteen. She fired ten ferocious aces and took full advantage of the several unforced errors the Romanian coughed.
The highest ranked player of the tournament had a good season so far. She made a last four showing at Paris WTA Premier event and Biella ITF event, and reached the quarters at Tokyo WTA Premier event. In addition to this, Kanepi
made a title round appearance at Moscow WTA Premier event (lost to eight seeded Slovak Dominika Cibulkova) before entering this tournament.
Next up for Kanepi is the German qualifier Dinah Pfizenmaier who blasted past Russian qualifier Polina Vinogradova with a bagel to set-up this date.
Second seed Timea Babos of Hungary will join the Estonian in the second round. She flashed past French Alize Lim in straight sets in almost an hour. The Hungarian cashed in all three breakpoint opportunities to her advantage and
warded off all eight breakpoints faced to seal the victory with a 6-3, 6-3 score line.
Tags: