Mercury Insurance Open 2010: Flavia Pennetta and Kuznetsova win their matches
Flavia Pennetta has reached the semi-final round of the Mercury Insurance Open 2010 after defeating Samantha Stosur in a total of two sets on Friday. The final score was 6-4, 6-3.
Pennetta dominated the match with the help of her consistent and nearly perfect ground strokes, along with a superior serve as compared to her opponent on the court. She had a total of nineteen winners in contrast to twelve of her twenty-six-year old opponent.
Pennetta said, “I am really glad with the way I fought as Stosur is undoubtedly one of the greatest tennis players from the women side.” She added, “She has had an improbable season. It’s always difficult to defeat such kind of opponent. For me, it was even harder.”
As a result of this victory, the fifth seeded Italian tennis star Pennetta will meet Svetlana Kuznetsova, the Russian tennis ace in the semi-final battle of the San Diego tennis tournament. Svetlana made her way into the semi-final round after knocking down youngster CoCo Vandeweghe in a two set clash. The final match score was 7-5, 6-2.
“In my opinion, my experience earned me this victory in the end”, said Kuznetsova after knocking down Coco Kuznetsova. As a result, she has managed to reach her first semi-final of the year. “I didn’t play at my very best. I think she was more confident than me however my experience did the trick for me in the end”, she added.
Coming back to Pennetta’s victory over Stosur, the Italian has so far managed to knock down Stosur in a total of three occasions; she has repeated the feat twice this season.
Stosur, the runners-up at the French Open championship this season, didn’t even record an ace and had a total of five double faults. She is recognized as one of the top servers in the game of women tennis behind top ranked Serena Williams. Pennetta on the other hand, had a total of eight aces and a single double fault.
“In spite of the fact that she has one of the game’s best serves even then I felt comfortable while playing against her and I did manage to tackle her speed as well”, Pennetta said.
Pennetta has so far won a total of thirteen career victories against top ten tennis contenders. However, this one was the Italian’s first one since the United States Open tournament back in 2009.
“She makes you run all the time on the court”, Stosur said. “You have to fight really hard in order to win every single point and it can be a bit tiring as well as frustrating at times”, she added.
In another match, the eighteen-year-old Vandeweghe faced Kuznetsova in her match in San Diego. Both the players were playing against each other for the first time. Kuznetsova, while commenting on their first encounter, said, “It’s really tough when you go out to meet a player for the very first time in your career as you cannot predict and plan much prior to the match”, said, Kuznetsova. All I was trying throughout the match was to judge his game and understand her style of play”, she added.
In the end, Kuznetsova did well to win the match against Vandeweghe in San Diego.
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