Maria Kirilenko outfoxes Lourdes Dominguez-Lino to progress into round four – BNP Paribas Open 2012
A gruelling three-setter between the Russian beauty starlet, Maria Kirilenko and the Spanish veteran, Lourdes Dominguez-Lino, ended up with the scores of 6-2, 4-6, 6-4 in favour of the Russian. The crowd at the hard courts of Indian
Wells loved every bit of three-hour marathon.
An untraditional start to the battle witnessed an exchange of breakpoints before the Russian held her serve to register a lead of 3-1. Once again, a trade of breakthroughs further enhanced the lead of Kirilenko to 5-2. She was
serving for the set and gifted a couple of points to her opponent before marching on with a lead.
The second set was completely different from the first. Both players started off in the same fashion, a swap of breakpoints, but held their respective serves to push the scores to 2-2. Another exchange of breakthroughs kept the
scores together at 3-3. No more breakpoints were witnessed for the next three games. Lino broke serve in the 10th game of the set to turn the tables on her opponent and level the set scores.
A conventional start to the final set helped the players to capitalize on their serves and kept the scoreboard ticking over. Scores moved on to 4-4 without much drama and the pressure serve games were coming up for both players.
It was Lino who served the following game of the set. She committed three back-to-back unforced errors that were completely uncharacteristic of her. She almost donated the most critical breakthrough of the match to her opponent.
Kirilenko took a sigh of relief and served the last game in pressure but saved a breakpoint to register a win.
Kirilenko registered her second head-to-head win against the Spaniard. Lino is yet to get off the mark against her. The Russian defeated the Spanish player in the same tournament five years ago.
It sets up a draw between the two Russians, Nadia Petrova and Maria Kirilenko, in the fourth round of the tournament. It will be an enthralling battle considering that Petrova also has an upset under her belt; defeated Samantha
Stosur in the third round.
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