Lesia Tsurenko rallies past Reka-Luca Jani into the second round – Budapest Grand Prix 2011
Ukraine’s Lesia Tsurenko battled past Hungarian qualifier Reka-Luca Jani in a three set thriller to advance into the second round at POLI-FARBE Budapest Grand Prix, a WTA Premier event held on the clay court in Hungary. She bounced
from a set down to win against the qualifier with a 3-6, 7-5, 6-2 victory in front of her home crowd on Monday.
Ranked 129th in the Sony Ericsson WTA Premier rankings, Tsurenko overpowered the Hungarian, ranked 95 places below her, in two hours and ten minutes to secure a second round spot in this event. After earning this success,
the Ukrainian took lead in the head-to-head series by 1-0 against Jani.
19-year-old Hungarian made quick in-roads in the opening set as she broke Ukrainian’s serves thrice to clinch the opener with a 6-3 win. She failed to save both breakpoints conceded but converted three out of five breakpoint chances
to her advantage to win comfortably. In addition to this, Jani produced a similar first serve share of 67 percent and earned an amazing 67 percent win on it.
The teenager kept on her spirit in the second set and got the desiderated break in the very first game. She then held her opening serve to extend the lead by 2-0. Despite losing her serve in the following game, the Hungarian levelled
Ukrainian at 5-5 before stepping off gas.
Tsurenko got on track from where Jani fell as she broke the youngster’s serve in the sixth game to eventually seal the equaliser with a 7-5 score line.
The Ukrainian carried her winning ways in the final set where Jani ran out of steam. She unleashed flurry of groundstrokes to reel off first five games in a row before the local star could hold on. Tsurenko lowered the lead by
losing two consecutive games but broke Jani’s serve again in the eighth game to bag the decider with a 6-2 win.
Up next for the Ukrainian is the fifth seeded Spaniard Anabel Medina Garrigues who slew Russian Anastasia Pivovarova with a breadstick to set-up this clash.
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