Marina Erakovic upsets Yaroslava Shvedova; joins Alla Kudryavtseva in next round – AEGON Classic 2011
Marina Erakovic of New Zealand continued her impressive run on the green surface as she crushed number eleven seed Yaroslava Shvedova 7-6 (7), 7-5 to make it through to the third round of 2011 AEGON Classic in Birmingham.
The 23-year-old Erakovic gave a strong performance in her opening match at the Edgbaston Priory Club when she thrashed out Spanish Arantxa Parra Santonja 6-4, 6-4. Working on a similar strategy, the New Zealander downed Shvedova
in her second round match that lasted for 2 hours and 10 minutes.
Making a great start to the contest, Erakovic broke the Kazakh rival in the very first game of the opening set. Shvedova, who looked in commanding form in her first match, broke straight back to level the terms. Some highly competitive
tennis was witnessed afterwards as both players broke each other once to take the set into a tie-breaker. Showing her game quality and grass court skills, Erakovic fittingly clinched the set with four straight points.
Looking to find an entry back into the match, Shvedova started the second set with a very positive intent. Using her foot work, she looked to create chances for herself. However, Erakovic stood firm and did not make too many mistakes
for her opponent to work with. Converting her sixth service game successfully, the world number 151 earned a crucial 6-5 lead in the set. Shvedova failed to handle the pressure on her net service game and gifted points to Erakovic as the match ended in straight
sets.
Errakovic’s accurate and well paced serving played a vital role in her victory as the New Zealander reached 67 percent first serve conversion. Her ability to earn points through serve aces played on the mind of her opponent. Capturing
43 percent of the points in the serve return department, goes on to suggest that she had a good and solid defensive plan in store as well. She will be hoping to achieve similar results in her upcoming matches at the US $ 220,000 tournament.
Russian Alla Kudryavtseva also snatched 7-5, 3-6, 6-4 victory against Casey Dellacqua on Wednesday to book her place in the next round of WTA tournament.
Seeded sixteenth here at AEGON Classic, Kudryavtseva made a stunning start to the match and took the opening set with a crucial serve break. Offering a tough resistance, Dellacqua changed the picture of the match completely with
a brilliant execution of her game plan in the second set.
However Kudryavtseva organised her game play better in the final set and came up with special performance to shift the balance towards her. Smashing a lovely backhand winner, she completed a deserving victory.
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