Klara Zakopalova defeats Anastasiya Yakimova to reach quarterfinals at the 2011 Estoril Open
Seeded third at the 2011 Estoril Open, Klara Zakopalova made a phenomenal comeback to register her third quarterfinal appearance of this season. The Russian defeated Belarusian Anastasiya Yakimova 2-6, 6-4, 6-1 on Wednesday to reach the last eight at the ATP 250 series tournament.
Zakopalova has been in decent form since the year 2011 has started. She reached the semifinal at her first tournament of the season in Auckland defeating top seeded Marion Bartoli in the quarterfinal. Her good run on the tour continued at the 2011 Qatar ladies Open as well where she upset top seeded players to book a place in the last eight. Just over a week ago she made another quarterfinal appearance at the 2011 Marbella Open. Zakopalova seemed to have carried over a lot of confidence from her consistent performances on the tour as she bids for third WTA triumph of her career.
The match started on a very shaky note for the world number 34 Zakopalova. She played a few carless shots early in the opening set and soon found herself trailing the game score by 0-2. Yakimova was very quick to grab the opportunities and adopted aggressive approach to pressurize her opponent even further. The 24-year-old Belarusian broke the serve twice and took the opener comfortably 6-2.
Zakopalova started the second set on a poor note as well as she suffered a serve break in third game of the set. However from there on, the Russian regrouped herself and showed amazing fighting ability to make a double serve break. She held on to her serve games to take the match into a decider.
In the final set Zakopalova completely dominated the challenger with her strong baseline play as she dropped only a game in the set to seal the match after 1 hour and 55 minutes of play. The 29-year-old will take on Spaniard Anabel Medina Garrigues who crushed Hungarian veteran Great Arn 6-2, 1-0.
"I expected a tough match. Anastasiya is a tough player, fighting a lot and moving so well," Zakopalova said of Yakimova. "I'm very satisfied to be in the quarters, but I'm playing Anabel next, and she's a very tough player too."
Zakopalova, who turned 29 two months ago, lists clay as her favorite surface in her WTA profile. - however, the hard-hitting Czech has changed that. "Actually I've maybe changed my mind. Before it was clay because I can run well and my serve isn't my best shot, so it was harder for me to play on grass or other surfaces. I grew up on clay too. But now I would say my favorite surface is hardcourt."
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