Kateryna Bondarenko plonks Anna-Lena Friedsam to reach final round - Porsche Tennis Grand Prix 2012
World number 62, Kateryna Bondarenko, was tested to her limits by the 18-year-old German, Anna-Lena Friedsam, before she could grasp a 6(5)-7, 6-1, 6-2 win to reach the final qualifying round of the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix tournament.
The German teen resisted for an hour and 49 minutes on her home soil before bowing down to the Ukrainian starlet. It was the first face-off between the two players and both were ready to take on one another with no holds barred.
The local teen won the opening set in the tie-breaker but the experience of Ukrainian powered her down in the following two sets; forcing her out of the competition.
It was a stunning start for the seventh seed Ukrainian who broke serve in the second game to take a lead of 3-0. However, an immediate reply from the local teen levelled the scores at 3-3 and put life into the crowd who starting
cheering for her. No more breakpoints were witnessed in the remaining games of the set and the tie-breaker clash was setup to separate the winner from the loser.
With major experience of being in these kinds of stages, it was expected that the Ukrainian starlet will hold her nerves to power down her rival but the proceedings went otherwise. The local fighter thumped her opponent down and
took a lead of one set.
After portraying such a cracking performance in the opening set, the game style of Friedsam suddenly took a nose dive and she lost three back-to-back breakpoints in the second set to face an embarrassing defeat; could on grab just
one serve hold in the seven games played.
The momentum was not broken and the Ukrainian starlet commenced the final set in emphatic fashion; breaking serve twice on the trot and registering a resounding lead of 4-0 upfront. The German broke serve in the fifth game and
registered her first serve hold of the set to deplete the trail. However, the cruising Ukrainian registered an easy serve hold and trounced her opponent down to another breakthrough that ended the match in her favour.
Bondarenko will get to know her next opponent at the end of Monday’s play when the draws will be updated.
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