Maria Kirilenko guns down injured Carla Navarro in 1st round – Luxembourg Open 2011
Seventh seeded Russian Maria Kirilenko was leading in the decider when her Spanish rival, Carla Suarez Navarro, was forced to retire with a right ankle injury at the BGL BNP Paribas Luxembourg Open 2011, a WTA indoor tournament
held on the hard courts in Luxembourg City, Luxembourg. She registered a 7-6(5), 3-6, 3-0 retirement victory over the 23-year-old Spaniard to reach the second round on Monday.
In a two hour and thirteen minutes match, the only seed in action proved her class to outrun the Spaniard on their third meeting. She not only extended her lead in the head-to-head series by 3-0 against Navarro but also secured
a second round spot at this last WTA event taking place.
Ranked 24th in the Sony Ericsson WTA Premier rankings, Kirilenko made a disastrous entry as she lost her serve early on to go 3-1 down. Despite recovering in the sixth game, she lost her blood again in the eleventh game
to trail 5-6. However, she roared back again after snatching her break back in the proceeding game and overpowered the Spaniard in the tie-breaker to clinch the opener with a 7-6(5) score line. She capitalised on two out of six breakpoint chances to her advantage
but failed to capitalise on both breakpoints faced.
The frustrated Spaniard lifted her game to swing in opening three games in a row. Despite losing her edge in the fifth game, she broke the Russian’s serve again in the following game and then kept remaining serves to seal the victory
by winning six games to three. Navarro failed to defend the only breakpoint faced but cashed in on half of the four breakpoint opportunities to her advantage.
24-year-old Russian turned the table around again as she converted one out of two breakpoint opportunities to her advantage to reel off first three games in a row. After this, Navarro felt severe pain on her right ankle and was
forced to retire.
Up next for the seed is the Czech Iveta Benesova who bounced back to register a 3-6, 6-3, 6-2 victory over French Pauline Parmentier on their fourth meeting.
Benesova saved one out of three breakpoints came across but capitalised on four out of ten breakpoint opportunities to her advantage. She also clobbered a higher first serve share of 75 percent as compared to French woman’s 57
percent and registered a fabulous 74 percent win on it.
After earning this one hour and thirty-eight minutes success, the 28-year-old Czech extended her lead in the head-to-head series by 4-0 against Parmentier.
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