Kaia Kanepi vaporises Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova to reach the quarters – Brisbane WTA 2012
Estonian Kaia Kanepi displayed awe-inspiring skills to slay the seventh seeded Russian, Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova, with a bagel at the Brisbane International 2012, a joint professional tennis tournament which is held on the hard courts in Brisbane,
Australia. She barely sweated to clobber a 6-0, 6-3 victory over the 20-year-old Russian to advance into the last eight on Wednesday.
Reaching her career-best rank of 16 last year, Kanepi maintained her focus throughout the contest to succeed by upsetting the current world number 16 from Russia. She not only booked a quarter-final spot at this first WTA (Women’s Tennis
Association) event of the season but also got one step closer to lift her ninth career title.
The 26-year-old Estonian blasted winners and went on a six games rampage in the opening set. She never faced any hindrance or a breakpoint from Pavlyuchenkova and converted three out of four break chances to her advantage, earning a bagel in under
an hour. She clobbered a much better first serve share of 79 percent as opposed to Pavlyuchenkova’s 33 percent and clinched 10 out of 11 points on it.
Kanepi carried her winning momentum in the second set and held her serve in the opening game. Later, she kept her remaining serves through amazing agility and broke the seed’s serve once in the eighth game to pocket the set with a 6-3 win. The Estonian
again faced not even a single breakpoint and capitalised on one out of six break opportunities. She also formulated a better first serve share of 68 percent as compared to the Russian’s 59 percent and jolted down a perfect win on it.
Next challenge for the high flying Estonian is the second seed, Andrea Petkovic, who also crushed her opponent with a bagel to reach this spot. The German lost her serve once but broke Czech Barbora Zahlavova Strycova’s serve four times to seal the
success with a 7-6(2), 6-0 score line.
Sixth seed Jelena Jankovic will join Kanepi in the final eight. She eased through Russian Nina Bratchikova in straight sets in their first meeting to reach this spot.
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