Mona Barthel dispatches Kateryna Bondarenko to reach the last eight – Swedish Open 2012
German starlet, Mona Barthel, outplayed the 25-year-old Ukrainian, Kateryna Bondarenko, to reach the quarter-final stage of the Sony Ericsson Open in Bastad, Sweden. It was a one sided encounter especially in the first half of
the match; dominated throughout by the seventh seed German who won it 6-2, 7-5 in the end.
Bondarenko tried hard to keep her chances alive for an hour and 25 minutes but couldn’t further resist her opponent. Previously, she had won the first battle between the two players that took place almost two years ago in Bratislava.
However, the sweet revenge for the 22-year-old German was obvious considering her superior rank and improved game style.
The opening set was clearly ruled by the 41st ranked German who broke serve twice in the beginning of the set to take a resounding lead of 4-0. She was pushed back for a while with a breakthrough in the following game
but she bounced back hard to reinstate her lead. Another swap of breakpoints ended the set in favour of the German.
Not a single serve game was held successfully by the 87th ranked Ukrainian who looked a bit out of socks after a terrific first round match-up. It was a tremendous display of shear powerful ground strokes from the German
that completely dismantled the confidence of her rival.
The second set was a bit more competitive than the first. However, it was still comprehensively dominated by the 41st ranked German who wasted quite a lot of opportunities to finish the match in quick succession.
Bondarenko broke serve in the first game of the second set but could only hold a lead for two games. A trade of breakthroughs further pushed the scores at 4-4. With not much drama scores moved on to 5-5. It seemed like a tie-breaker
round would be required to separate the winner from the loser.
However, the German starlet won another breakthrough in the 12th game of the set to leave no chance for her rival for any comeback. It was a much needed win for the German who seemed to have lost the golden touch that
she had in the start of the season.
Barthel won 82 points in total compared to 67 of her rival. She converted seven of the allotted 15 points whereas her rival constructed the same number of opportunities to break serve but could only translate four in her favour.
Barthel contests against the winner of Arantxa Rus and Sofia Arvidsson in the next round.
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