Mirza/Vives struggle past Bacsinszky/Sanchez to reach the quarter-finals – China Open 2012
Fifth seeded Indian-Spanish duo of Sania Mirza and Nuria Llagostera Vives had a real rough ride before outperforming the Swiss-Spanish combination of Timea Bacsinszky and Maria Jose Martinez Sanchez in the second round of the China
Open. It took them one hour and 32 minutes to settle the three-setter thriller at 4-6, 6-3, 11-9, in their favour and booked a spot in the quarter-final draw of the WTA Premier Series event.
Mirza and Vives took an easy victory in the opening round of the tournament but had to dig deep in the Wednesday’s encounter. They suffered an early blow when Bacsinszky and Sanchez raced through the opening set to get the upper
hand in the contest. The Swiss-Spanish tandem was looking for an upset but Mirza and Vives made their valiant comeback in the very next set to remain alive in the competition. They took the second set convincingly to drag the match into the super tie-break.
After a gruelling battle in the decider, Mirza and Vives eventually came out as the deserving winners.
The fifth seeded duo had a decent first serve precision of 63 per cent in the match, bagging 28 out of 43 points on it. They were closely followed by Bacsinszky and Sanchez, who clinched 27 out of their 44 first serve points but
had to finish on the losing side with the closest of margins. A total of 132 points were played in the contest, with the fifth seeded pair winning 68 and its rivals securing 64.
Both teams registered three break points apiece in the contest and evenly matched each other’s skills. It only appeared to be a matter of time that Mirza and Vives clinched the all-important points in the match to cross the finishing
line first. The super tie-break round extended to a total of 20 points but it was the Indian-Spanish tandem which nudged forward to bag two successive points towards the end and wrapped up victory at 11-9.
Mirza and Vives will either face the fourth seeded American-Kazakh pair of Vania King and Yaroslava Shvedova or the unseeded German-Czech combination of Julia Goerges and Barbora Zahlavova-Strycova in the quarter-finals of the
China Open later this week.
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