King/ Shvedova breeze past Daniilidou/ Minella into the semi-final – HP Japan Open 2011
Top seeded team of Vania King with Yaroslava Shvedova send packing Greek Eleni Daniilidou with Luxembourgian Mandy Minella in the doubles quarterfinal of the HP Japan Open 2011. On Thursday the 13th of October the crews battled
racquets on the outdoor hard courts of Utsubo Tennis Center in Osaka, Japan. After only forty eight minutes American underdog King with Kazakh Shvedova got the better off the Greek/ Luxembourgian duo in straight sets of 6-2, 6-1.
The first round of the match was initiated by Daniilidou/ Minella after they had won the service toss and they expertly handled their service game to open the scoreboard at 1-0. Following in their footsteps King/ Shvedova also
manage to serve well and level the scores at 1-1 in the second game. They then capitalized on an early break and as they held serve in the fourth game, they were leading with a 3-1 score.
The two teams then broke each other back-to-back but Shvedova/ King were leading with a break and a game. The top seed American/ Kazakh further increased their lead by benefitting from another break and the scoreboard had progressed
to 5-2. As the top seeded couple served for the set, they smashed two consecutive aces and bagged a 6-2 victory of the opening set.
King/ Shvedova had managed to gain one up in the match and as they had powered through the first set, they set the tone for the second.
Dominating from the very start was King/ Shvedova as they took advantage of an early break in the first game; they then went on to holding their serve in the second and comfortably placed themselves with a 2-0 lead on the scoreboard.
They then repeated the feat and further increased the lead to 4-0.
During the following two games the squads quickly and skilfully held serve and the scoreboard had spun to 4-1 by the end of the fifth game. As they held serve in the sixth game, the top seeded duo was now only a game away. As Daniilidou/
Minella double faulted on their second serve, they bagged only one game out of the seven played. Mean while, the American/ Kazakh had sealed their victory of the set and the match.
Overall in the match, King/ Shvedova had hit 85 percent of their first serves on target and by capitalizing on six out of the seven breakpoint chances; they scored almost twice as many total points won as their adversaries.
Next up for the top seeded duo is the third seeded American couple of Raquel Kops-Jones and Abigail Spears.
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