Marion Bartoli dumps Mallory Burdette to reach the quarter-finals – Bank of the West Classic 2012
Second seeded French powerhouse, Marion Bartoli, registered a thumping straight sets victory over the local wildcard entrant, Mallory Burdette, in the second round of the Bank of the West Classic tournament on Thursday. The reigning
world number 10 took one hour and 29 minutes of play to settle the clash at 7-5, 6-0, to earn a place in the quarter-final draw of the WTA (Women’s Tennis Association) International Tour event in Stanford, USA.
It was the first ever encounter between these two contestants and Bartoli faced no real challenge to bag an easy breezy victory. Burdette posed some solid resistance in the opening set but was completely blown away by the sheer
power of the French contender in the second set. She couldn’t even hold her serve once in the second set and suffered a bagel to fall out of the tournament in a dismal manner.
The contest took off with the 21-year-old American rocketing away to a 4-1 lead with an early serve break and Bartoli was soon found struggling at 3-5. Burdette’s momentum was finally halted by the second seed French went for a
four game rampage, breaking the American serve twice in succession to seal the first set at 7-5.
Once getting into her winning groove, Bartoli never looked back at her opponent in the following set and went on all guns blazing to blast her way to victory. She won nine out of 13 first serve points and broke Burdette three times
in a row, not letting her to win even a single game to finish at 6-0. The American youngster had a break chance in the set but couldn’t convert it, eventually finishing on the losing side in the end.
Being the first stop of the US Open Series, the Bank of West Classic is a vital event in preparations for the season’s last Grand Slam event in New York. Bartoli will have to face the fifth seed Belgian tennis ace, Yanina Wickmayer,
in the quarter-final rounds of the tournament on Friday. Wickmayer defeated the Brit tennis prodigy, Heather Watson, in the second round on Wednesday’s eve.
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