Nadia Petrova scuttles past Simona Halep to reach round three – US Open 2012
World number 22, Nadia Petrova, gusted away the 53rd ranked Romanian youngster, Simona Halep, in straight sets 6-1, 6-1 to qualify for the third round at the US Open Championship on the eve of Wednesday.
Previously, the two players had locked horns in the second round of the Sony Ericsson Open at Miami and it was the Romanian underdog who scuttled past her foe in straight sets. So, it was a sweet revenge for the 30-year-old Russian
who was in search for an occasion to have a rematch with the 20-year-old Romanian.
Petrova commenced with a serve hold and broke serve to take a lead of 2-0 upfront. She repeated a similar phenomenon in the following two games to enhance her lead to 4-0. It was a terrific start for the Russian superstar who is
considered to be the doubles specialist and not an impactful singles competitor. This performance must have answered her critics who put a doubles specialist tag on her.
Halep couldn’t handle the onslaught and could only manage a single serve hold before gifting another breakpoint in the seventh game of the match that proved to be the final action from the first phase of the contest.
Petrova looked set to stamp her authority and she commenced the second set with a serve hold to love; continuing her terrific display, the Russian bagged the first breakpoint of the second set and won all four points on her serve
to take a resounding lead of 3-0.
The 53rd ranked Romanian was in no position to register a comeback. She was miserably struggling with her serves; committing four double-faults in the entire encounter and only managing to convert 48% of her first serve
points.
Petrova continued to hammer her opponent down with startling winners down the line and across the court. Nothing was going in favour of the Romanian who was victim to the second straight breakpoint in that drowned her to a trail
of 0-4.
With just a mere serve hold, Halep surrendered in the seventh game of the second set and that confirmed the date between Petrova and Lucie Safarova in round three.
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