Ling Zhang toils to victory against Eugenie Bouchard to the quarters – Challenger of Granby 2011 CH
In a tremendous battle which followed on Thursday afternoon, the fourth seed Ling Zhang of Hong Kong edged past Eugenie Bouchard of Canada in the second round of the National Bank’s Challenger of Granby.
The enthralling contest lasted for two hours and thirty seven minutes of play, with Zhang finally coming out as the winner in the third set. The fourth seed settled the final scores at 6-7(3), 7-5, 7-5, to book a spot in the quarter-finals
of the ITF (International Tennis Federation) tournament.
The competition took place on the hard courts of Granby, Canada, with the 17-year-old local girl fighting extremely hard to take down the fourth seed. Bouchard had control of the matchup in the opening set but couldn’t sustain
the momentum in the later parts of the game, eventually submitting the contest to the hard-hitting Zhang.
Both contestants were off to a flyer in the opening set, trying to overcome their opponent with their aggressive tennis. Bouchard served out brilliantly with 80 per cent accuracy in the opener and collected 23 first serve points,
as compared to Zhang’s 16. The Canadian drew the first blood with a cracking serve break in the third game but his advantaged was nullified by a break point conversion from the Chinese in the very next game to keep the scores down to 2-2.
A further trade of serve breaks from both players took the opening set into a tie breaker round but Zhang appeared in a terrible condition in the decider and secured just three points before the Canadian bagged it at 7-6(3), to
get 1-0 in the match. More intense followed in the next set, with the fourth seeded Chinese straining hard to bounce her way back into the competition.
Two break points from each player took the scores to 5-5 and a tie breaker near to be enforced but a crucial serve break from Zhang sealed the second set for her at 7-5 to level the contest with one set a piece.
The flurry of serve breaks continued in the final se as well and again the scores got levelled at 5-5 with an exchange of break points. The fourth seed stood up to the task once again and pinched the all-important serve break to
finish off the contest at 7-5, getting through to the quarter-finals of the Challenger of Granby.
Zhang will face off against the American competitor, Jennifer Elie, in the quarter-final draws for a place in the semis.
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