Ksenia Pervak defeats Noppawan Lertcheewakarn in the 1stround – Baku Cup 2011
Russian, Ksenia Pervak, outperformed the Thai, Noppawan Lertcheewakarn in the first round of the Baku Cup 2011 at the Baku Tennis Academy, Baku, Azerbaijan. The Russian, Ksenia won the match in an exciting two hour, nineteen minutes
and 13 seconds recording a 3-6, 6-1, 7-5 win.
Previously both the players had contested against each other once in 2010. Therefore, not meeting for the first time both the players were familiar with each other’s style, skill and technique. The last time they took up the gauntlet
with each other was at the Kala Lumpur Cup, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia where Lertcheewakarn battled it out on a hard court in the third round and triumphed 6-1, 6-4, winning two sets out of the total three played. The Higher Power had granted Ksenia another
chance to even out the score with her old time competitor (Noppawan) at the first round of the Baku Cup on Tuesday.
First set of the match saw; neither of the players threw an ace and both of them had excellent accuracy as neither of them threw a double fault either. Noppawan was running all over the court and had a mediocre serve but above
average return serve and also managed to win four out of seven break points to her advantage. Although Ksenia served first she had a very poor first serve and a mediocre return serve. She lost the match with twenty percent less than her opponent’s points.
The only reason why Noppawan won because she had more points than her opponent in the total set points.
By the end of the first set the score card read 1:0, after taking a beating in the first set Ksenia jumped right back into the game and was not to give up that easy. One might think she was trying to tire her opponent in the first
set. Serving first Ksenia played with extreme precision and struck no double faults along with zero aces. She showed a major improvement in her serve from the first set and was able to win eighty percent of her total service points of the set along with a
fifty nine percent of win in her total return points she stood like a brick wall back lashing everything that came her way. Her defence was like a fortress and did not give way to her opponent and won a comprehensive victory over opponent Noppawan. On the
other hand, Noppawan was dumb struck and was too tired to play, with a poor game she lost the match giving her opponent an opportunity to equalize the set score to 1-1.
This was the final deciding set of the match as to whether the Thai will win with her lead in their head to head or will the Russian roulette pull the trigger to avenge her loss; The match did not prove to be a comprehensive victory
for either of the player, instead it was a close tie between both the players. Although Ksenia managed to keep a mediocre consistency on her serve and return game, her precision seemed to falter and struck five double faults, three hit the net while the remaining
two were line faults and so it seemed the ball was magnetically drawn to the net along with two break point advantages that she gave to her opponent’s edge. Whereas, the Thai managed to not only just hang in the match she faltered thrice on her serve and gave
three break point opportunities to her opponent. The match then became a close tie between both the players however; Ksenia won the match by winning the tie breaker 7-5. Her overall performance in the set was above average and won the set with forty six points
out of a total of eighty two while her rival (Noppawan) had thirty six out of eight two total set points.
Pervak was not only able to equalize the head to head score 1-1 but was also able to qualify to the second round of the Baku Cup where she will be facing her compatriot Vesna Dolonts.
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