Mattek-Sands/Tecau outmuscle Shvedova/Ram to reach the quarters – Australian Open 2012
Eighth seeded tandem of Bethanie Mattek-Sands and Horia Tecau edged past the Kazakh-Israeli pair of Yaroslava Shvedova and Andy Ram at the first Grand Slam, Australian Open, on Tuesday. They registered a 6-4, 7-6(2) score line against their rivals to advance into the final eight at this major hard court tournament taking place in Melbourne, Australia.
The American-Romanian duo required one hour and 32 minutes to fend off late resistance posed by the unseeded pair and registered a straight set victory. After earning success in their first meeting, Mattek-Sands and Tecau moved one step closer to $135,500 prize money.
The beaming seeds confidently stepped on court number two at the Melbourne Park and smoothly kept thier opening serve. They failed to block the only breakpoint the duo came across and capitalised on two out of five break opportunities, ultimately sealing the deal with a 6-4 score line in 36 minutes.
Mattek-Sands and Tecau kept momentum rolling into the following set and swiped in their opening serve convincingly. Later, they exchanged serve breaks and dragged the set to a tie-breaker. The seeds dominated in it and bagged the set with a 7-6(2) win in 56 minutes.
Overall, the Higher ranked pair of Mattek-Sands and Tecau displayed amazing collaboration. They produced a slightly higher first serve share of 61 percent as compared to their opponents’ 51 percent and manipulated an impressive 32 out of 43 points on it. The pair committed several unforced errors but smacked 23 winners to cover it up.
The high flying tandem of Mattek-Sands and Tecau will next confront the winner of the match between the wild card entrants, Jarmila Gajdosova of Australia and Bruno Soares of Brazil, and the American-Pole collaboration of Abigail Spears and Mariusz Fyrstenberg.
In the morning match, Italian combination of Roberta Vinci and Daniele Bracciali dumped the Japanese wild card entrants, Kimiko Date-Krumm and Kei Nishikori, in straight sets to reach the quarter-finals. The Italians lost their serve twice but broke their opponents’ serve six times to register a 6-3, 7-6(6) victory in 79 minutes.
The Italians will square off against the seventh seeded team of Czech Republic’s Andrea Hlavackova and Pakistan’s Aisam-Ul-Haq Qureshi who are unbeaten in this tournament.
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