Nadia Petrova escapes upsets against Vania King in round one – Mutua Madrid Open 2012
Nadia Petrova, the 29-year-old Russian, was tested to limits by the 57th ranked American, Vania King, in the opening round clash of the Mutua Madrid Open on Sunday. However, she survived the scare and won the match 4-6,
6-3, 6-1 to book a spot in the next round of the tournament.
It was a rematch for the last year’s edition of the tournament and the results were also the same. Petrova won the match in straight sets last year but was forced to bounce back a set down to survive a first round exit this time
around. This triumph also stretched the head-to-head lead to 4-1 for the 31st ranked Russian.
The opening set witnessed an early breakthrough for the American who piled up a lead of 3-2 in the meantime. However, she squandered the lead in the sixth game and the scores were levelled at 3-3.
Both players held their serves before Petrova was broken for the second time in the set. King didn’t make mistake this time around and held serve after a slight scare to win the first set.
Despite losing the opening set, the superior ranked Russian kept playing her natural game and she was rewarded in the sixth game in the form of a breakthrough. It was the only breakpoint of the set that helped the Russian to level
the set scores and enforced the final set into play.
King started showing some nerves by the end of the second set and the affect transferred into the third as well. She dropped three serve games in a row to gift the triumph to her rival.
A battle of an hour and 51 minutes featured a classic comeback from the Russian. Petrova is the former world number three so there is no doubt on her abilities to register such eye-startling turnarounds. She won 90 out of 157 total
points played and bagged five of her allotted seven opportunities to break serve. Her opponent was poor in converting her breakpoints and only bagged a couple of them from the allotted five.
Next up for the Russian tennis star is the 13th seed Serb, Ana Ivanovic. It will be a tremendous matchup between the two class acts. Both players have been amongst the Top-3 players of the world in their supreme era.
Ivanovic rose to the number one rank in 2008 after winning the Australian Open title.
All these stats hint at a world class clash in the round two of the Mutua Madrid Open.
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