Kateryna Bondarenko escapes Olga Govortsova's onslaught on the opening day – Family Circle Cup 2012
World number 66, Kateryna Bondarenko, sneaked a win against the 84th ranked Belarusian, Olga Govortsova, in the opening round clash of the Family Circle Cup in Charleston, USA. She bounced back a set down to oust her
rival 2-6, 6-2, 6-4 taking an hour and 49 minutes.
It was the second head-to-head triumph for the Ukrainian; first one was way back in 2004 during the third round clash of the Wimbledon (juniors) tournament. Govortsova had an opportunity to have her revenge of the earlier loss
but she failed to get on the mark against the Ukrainian.
Bondarenko commenced the match with a serve hold but lost hold of the proceedings in the fifth game of the set when she couldn’t win a single point on her serve. Her misery was doubled when the Belarusian broke serve for the second
time in the set and cruised away to a lead of 5-2. An easy serve hold for Govortsova checked the first set in her favour.
Trailing one set down, the Ukrainian saw the match sneaking away from her so she changed her game plan and used the serve and volley tactic which worked brilliantly in her favour. She was able to break serve thrice on the trot
and never looked to be in any sort of trouble registering serve hold except the first game of the set.
The third set was started cautiously by both players before an outbreak at each end witnessed three breakthroughs being shared in the ratio of 2:1 to Govortsova. It was the moment when everyone though that the Ukrainian will bow
down. The scores crept to 4-3 in favour of the Belarusian.
Bondarenko kept her cool and finally broke serve in the eighth game to level the scores at 4-4. The momentum swirled in her favour and she registered a thumping serve hold in the following game that switched the pressure back on
her opponent.
The Belarusian had to hold her serve to stay in the set but failed to stop her rival from winning a deciding breakpoint of the match. Bondarenko will take on the fourth seed Russian, Vera Zvonareva, in the next round.
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