Marina Erakovic upsets Victoria Azarenka in the 2nd round – Bank of the West Classic 2011
Thursday July 28, 2011 was the continuation of the second round of the Bank of the West Classic 2011. Marina Erakovic and Victoria Azarenka were meeting for the first time at the Taube Family Tennis Center Stanford University, California. Marina won the match 4-6, 7-5, 6-2 in two hours, twelve minutes, and 41 seconds.
Victoria won the pitch and opened the set by smashing two aces; she played three ground shots that dropped at the far right edge of the court which made it impossible for her opponent to return. She struck one double fault, while, her opponent Marina had an above average serve and average return serve, however, she was unable to save fifty percent of her break points which lost her the set.
The Bulgarian’s (Victoria) defence did not falter and she did not allow her opponent a single break point opportunity along with capitalizing on fifty percent of her opponents break points. Victoria won the set with eight more points than her opponents.
After befalling in the first set Marina learnt her lesson and she opened the serve by hitting two aces one after another though she struck two double faults. Additionally, her overall performance in this set was far better than the previous one and she managed to pull a few points. Victoria, on the other hand, was not performing like she did in the previous set.
Although, she was able to hit seventy six percent of her first serve shots on target, her accuracy had stuttered and she struck one line fault, along with, a poor defence. During the set both the competitors were rallying between each other and it was a close set, Marina had more points in her game and won because she was able to profit on the single break point she won, out of t he six that her opponent had created. She won the set 7-5
During the third set Marina had improved her serve and opened the second set with; throwing an ace and with extreme exactitude struck zero double faults. Whereas, the Bulgarian had an unstable hand and struck several unforced errors including three double faults.
Although, Victoria’s performance in her serve had declined from the previous set, she still achieved an average score of fifty percent in her total serve points, however, she lost her points because of a pathetic performance in her return serve (16% in her total return points in the third set) On the contrary, this was the Kiwi’s (Marina) best performance throughout the sets in her serve, winning fifteen percent more in her total serve points than the previous set.
The 21-year-old Victoria’s defence had stumbled and ended up giving two break point opportunities to her opponent, which off course she was able to convert. While, Marina had a stalwart defence and did not allow a single break point opportunity to her opponent along with winning two out of the five break points.
Marina bounced back from a set down to take the lead; she has now been able to qualify for the quarterfinal of the Bank of the West Classic 2011 where she will be contesting against Dominika Cibulkova from Slovakia.
Tags: