Maria Kirilenko defeats Chanelle Scheepers; through to the third round –French Open 2011
Twenty fifth seed Maria Kirilenko showed great character and temperament as she scored an easy 6-1, 6-4 victory over South African Chanelle Scheepers to cruise into the third round of 2011 French Open in Paris.
Kirilenko looked in commanding form in her second match at the Grand Slam tournament and required only one hour and 21 minutes dispatching her opponent. In the first set she dominated her opponent in all departments of the game.
A break of serve early in the set gave her the much needed momentum in the match. She did not allow the challenger to breath and broke the serve for the second time to earn a considerable lead. A successful conversion of her next service game gave her the
set score lead 1-0.
Scheepers regrouped herself and came up with a much more attacking strategy in the second set. With both players breaking serve at regular intervals, the match entered a very exciting phase. However, Kirilenko came up with a right
combination of shots in tenth game of the set to make her fourth serve break of the set and complete her straight sets win.
Despite serving with much more control and accuracy in the set, the South African was unable to make most of the chances she had. The fifteen unforced errors did not help the cause either. The Russian, on the other hand, seemed
to be unaffected by the fact that she suffered three serve breaks in the set, and fought hard until she clinched victory.
Dominating her opponent with her powerful and on-target serves, Kirilenko took control of points from the start. She reached an acceptable 64 percent first serve conversion and also managed to take 67 percent of the points on serve
return. She was the more successful of the two contestants in the break points conversion department with six out of eight break chances compared to only three out of nine managed by her opponent.
Ranked 27th in the Women’s Tennis Association rankings, Kirilenko has been struggling to find her top form since the start of this season. Although she reached the third round of both 2011 BNP Paribas Open and 2011 Sony
Ericsson, she will be disappointed with her overall effort.
Kirilenko’s best run at a Grand Slam was recorded at the 2010 Roland Garros when she reached the fourth round. In her next match-up at the tournament here, she will be facing Arantxa Rus who stunned the big gun Kim Clijsters to
come that far. A win over the Dutch will take her to the fourth round again at Roland Garros for the second time in her career but surely she will be expecting to achieve bigger results this time around.
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