Kirilenko/Petrova dispose of Hlavackova/Hradecka to reach the doubles final – French Open 2012
Russian veterans, Maria Kirilenko and Nadia Petrova, stormed into the doubles final of the French Open after hunting down the fifth seeded defending champions, Andrea Hlavackova and Lucie Hradecka, in the semi-final brawl on Thursday.
The seventh seeded Russians recovered from a one-set deficit to overwhelm the hot favourite Czech opponents at 4-6, 7-5, 7-5, to earn a title shot at the Grand Slam event in Paris, France.
The semi-final took off on Wednesday’s eve and the Russians were all over the place. Hlavackova and Hradecka cruised through the opening set to get the upper hand in the contest and then kept building up momentum in the following
set as well. The fifth seeded Czech competitors nailed two serve breaks straight up to race away to a 4-1 lead and it appeared as if it was all over for Kirilenko and Petrova. The seventh seeded Russian shifted their gears from there onwards and came up with
three successive break points to take the second set at 7-5.
With both teams evenly poised at 1-1, the contest had to be abandoned due to bad light and play was resumed on Thursday afternoon. Intense tennis continued in the decisive set and no break points were seen from either side. Scores
were dragged to 5-5 and it appeared as if a tie-breaker was about to come into play but smart game play from the Russians changed the course of the match. Kirilenko and Petrova came up with an all-important serve break in the 12th game of the set
and closed out the matchup in their favour at 7-5.
Kirilenko and Petrova had a phenomenal first serve in the contest, delivering 75 per cent of it on target and winning 58 out of 91 points on it to come out as the deserving winners. They converted four of the nine break points
in the matchup, whilst the Czech opponents could register three out of 11 serve breaks to finish on the losing side in the end.
The fourth seeded Italians, Sara Errani and Roberta Vinci, await the Russians in the title round of the French Open this weekend.
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