Ksenia Pervak downs Laura Pous-Tio to move into the semi-final – NURNBERGER Gastein Ladies 2011
Eight seeded Russian Ksenia Pervak fended off late resistance to win in straight sets against Spaniard Laura Pous-Tio at the NURNBERGER Gastein Ladies 2011, a clay court tournament held in Bad Gastein, Austria. She registered a
6-2, 7-6(5) victory over the 26-year-old Spaniard to advance into the last four on Saturday.
The only seeded player left in the tournament, Pervak outclassed the Spaniard in one hour and fifty minutes on their first meeting. The Russian was leading 3-0 when the match was suspended on Friday and after getting back court
the next day, Pervak carried her winning momentum to seal the deal in straight sets.
Ranked 65th in the Sony Ericsson WTA Premier rankings, Pervak thundered into the opening set and bombarded massive groundstrokes to reel off first three games in a row before the match was suspended. The next day when
it resumed, the Russian continued the flow and eventually sealed the opener with a 6-2 win. She saved two out of three breakpoints conceded and capitalised on three out of four breakpoint chances to her advantage. She also clobbered a much better first serve
share and registered an impressive 60 percent win on it.
Pous-Tio raised the bar of her game in the second set as she matched up with the Russian. Both players held on to their first two serves and after this they exchanged a series of four breaks to extend the set to a tie-breaker.
However, the Russian levelled five bet points in it and then went into overdrive mode to pull out the win. She registered a 7-6(5) score line and confidently advanced into the semi-finals of this event.
20-year-old Russian is in good shape this season. She reached the final at Zlin ITF and made a fourth round showing at Wimbledon before entering this WTA Premier International event. Pervak triumphed over French Alize Cornet and
Slovenian qualifier Nastja Kolar to set-up clash with the Spaniard.
The Chelyabinsk native, Pervak will next face the local wild card entrant, Patricia Mayr Achleitner. The Austrian gal dumped Bulgarian qualifier Dia Evtimova in straight sets to reach this spot.
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