Klara Zakopalova manoeuvres her way past Ani Mijacika into the quarterfinals – XXIV SNAI Open 2011
An aphorism which definitely applies to Klara Zakopalova is that she is hungry for her maiden title of the year and third of her career. The 2005 Palermo runner-up demonstrated that despite some second-set cobwebs, she is all-set
to fight for her first title here at Palermo, Italy.
Her opponent Ani Mijacika, playing in Palermo for the first time in her career, seemed out of sorts as soon as the match progressed towards the business end, losing the first set in just few minutes and getting broken in the opening
games of the second set; she won 61 percent of service points in total to take a 6-4 lead in the second set but Zakopalova snatched momentum back, ending strong and winning the last set of the match for her important career win.
While the Czech No.3 playing awesomely with some exhilarating attack and consistent ball-striking, Mijacika never seemed at her best in the final set. Attempting to avoid going towards the net, the Croat No.4 never came out of
her shell to hit the winners she needed if she was to end Zakopalova’s hope of reaching the main spot.
She only won fourteen games and lost the match in two hours and nine minutes of play. If the span of time demonstrated that it was closer than the score suggest, that would be a huge misunderstanding. From the point Mijacika lost
her serve in the final set in which both the women made a cautious start, she never looked like turning the match around and lost the set with three games to Zakopalova’s six.
With this win, the Czech has improved her year-to-date win/loss mark to 25/18 matches and now moves on face Polona Hercog in the quarterfinals of the tournament.
Before stepping into the quarterfinals against seventh-seeded Hercog, the 29-year-old Czech will be thinking ahead to her potential quarterfinal confrontation with the Slovenian, whose cannonball serves have been wreaking havoc
in the WTA tour level tournament last week, clinching her maiden WTA title at Bastad and showing the world that there is plenty more in her depository than the nuclear option she has at her disposal. She hit some smart volleys with some rasping groundstrokes,
so if the Czech lady wishes to clinch her maiden title here at Palermo, she will have to tear all the scripts against the Slovenian powerhouse to reach the semi-finals.
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