Maria Kirilenko humbles Alona Bondarenko in opening round – WANLIMA Women’s Open 2011
Russian tennis sensation Maria Kirilenko was absolutely stunning in her opening match at the 2011 WANLIMA International Women’s Open as she thrashed out Alona Bondarenko of Ukraine to reach the second here in Guangzhou, China.
Seeded first at the Women’s Tennis Association tournament, Kirilenko looked in destructive form in match that lasted for only 1 hour and 25 minutes on the hard courts of Guangzhou. Although she took her took time to settle down
in the match, she was unstoppable in the closing stages of the match as she dropped only a couple of games in the second.
Facing a difficult first round opponent in form Alona Bondarenko, Kirilenko had to play her A game to emerge victorious from this encounter. Despite making a few unforced errors in the opening set, she kept her focus on the game.
The Russian will be very pleased with the way she responded to tricky situations during the match. If she can be consistent for the next week or so, she will be very hard to beat.
Winner of five WTA titles, Kirilenko made a decent start to the match. Serving brilliantly, she had no problems securing her service games as she created doubts in her opponent’s mind. Breaking the serve at regular intervals, she
raced to an impassable 5-2 lead. Bondarenko put up a good fight and she broke back to reduce the game score advantage to 5-4. However, she failed to contain her opponent to trail the set score 0-1.
Kirilenko continued to play her natural game freely in the second set as well. Using the hit and volley technique to great effect, she surprised her opponent every now and then with her lovely slice shots. Breaking the serve three
times in the set, she completed a comfortable victory in match that proved to be fairly one sided.
Ranked 28th in the world, Kirilenko is the favourite to win this WTA tournament. However, her ability to win big matches has been questioned by many tennis analysts. She will be looking to prove her critics wrong by
giving consistent performances this time around.
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