Lucie Hradecka after her first title at the 2011 Barcelona Ladies Open
Czech tennis player Lucie Hradecka continued her winning streak at the tournament on Friday, defeating Sara Errani and qualifying for the 2011 Barcelona Ladies Open’s final for the first time in her career. The world number 41
showed her best form against her Italian opponent, reaching a 6-1, 7-5 victory in less than two hours in front of a packed David Lloyd Club Turo in Barcelona, Spain.
The 25-year-old Hradecka was very effective from the beginning, with her spectacular two-handed strokes. Errani, on the other hand, approached the net only two times in the first set, winning one game. She scored 81 percent of
her first serves, but she came under some pressure and couldn’t register a huge percentage behind her first serves. Things were really good for her at the start, all the way through but few mistakes at the end made her nervous and she lost the first set with
a breadstick defeat. Hradecka on the other hand seemed remarkably unruffled, playing the set at a very early pace to conserve energy to perform better later in the second set. Her strategies gave a lot in the way of results. At the end of the first set, Hradecka
won 6-1.
In the final set, Hradecka kept up her good performance, breaking her opponent’s serves in the sixth and fourth game. She took complete advantage of her opponent’s ordinary game play and broke the serve to 4-3in the set. Errani
couldn’t bounce back in the set as Hradecka held on to her serve games to clinch the final set with a 7-5 score line. The Italian pro again failed to handle the pressure and committed 3 double faults and a fair number of unforced errors. Her awkward mistakes
permitted the Czech to dictate terms as she broke her serve twice to complete an impressive victory.
With skillful serving, Hradecka scored an acceptable 55 percent on her first serves. She also overcame her seeded opponent by securing 56 percent of points on return and the same amount of number in total. In comparison, Errani
lagged behind with a meagre 44 percent on her service and 45 percent on her return. Moreover she scored 12 percent points less than her opponent in total and gave away the match in straight sets to her opponent.
So here came another victory for the Czech to add to her repertoire. She now moves on ahead to face Roberta Vinci of Italy in the final round of the tournament. Vinci, who is a sixth seed at the tournament, battled past Laura Pous-Tio
of Spain in straight sets to reach the final spot.
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