Kops-Jones/Spears strain past Czink/Hlavackova to reach the semi-final – Bell Challenge 2011
Top seeded American duo of Raquel Kops-Jones and Abigail Spears crawled away to victory after a nail-biting contest against the unseeded combination of Melinda Czink from Hungary and Andrea Hlavackova of Czech Republic, in the
quarter-final round of the Bell Challenge on Wednesday night.
The contest was staged on the indoor hard courts of Quebec, Canada, with the top seeded hot favourite pair clinching a hard-fought victory in three sets. Kops-Jones and Spears toiled for one hour and thirty four minutes before
settling the final scores at 2-6, 7-6(4), 10-6, earning a place in the round of four of the $220,000 WTA (Women’s Tennis Association) event.
Czink and Hlavackova were off to a flying start in the contest and pocketed the opener in an authoritative manner to get one up early in the contest. They carried on their aggressive game play in the following set as well and had
a great opportunity to upset the top seeded in the competition but a couple of silly mistakes on their part wore them out in the game.
Kops-Jones and Spears delivered 63 per cent of their serve on target and reeled off 29 out of 46 first serve points to get the better of their opponents in the game. They converted four of their 10 break points in the matchup,
while Czink and Hlavackova cracked in six out of 14 serve breaks to finish on the losing side in the end.
Czink and Hlavackova were absolutely ballistic in the opener, breaking the top seeded pair on three occasions to clinch the set at 6-2. Their belligerence continued in the following set as well, nailing three more serve breaks
to the opponents but Kops-Jones and Spears replied with the same this time round and dragged the second set into a tie breaker round. The top seeded duo took the second set tie breaker at 7-6(4) and then carried on their winning momentum in the final set to
conclude victory at 10-6.
Kops-Jones and Spears will take on either the third seeded duo of Michaella Krajicek and Lucie Safarova, or the unseeded combination of Heather Watson and Kathrin Woerle in the quarter-final clash on Thursday.
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