Nadia Petrova terminates Anabel Medina Garrigues in round two – UNICEF Open 2012
Russian 8th seed, Nadia Petrova, booked a quarter-final berth at the expense of the 28th ranked Spaniard, Anabel Medina Garrigues. She cleared the second round in an hour and 28 minutes ousting the 29-year-old
Spaniard in straight sets 7-5, 6-3.
Garrigues was put under pressure right from the start. She was forced to hold serve under immense stress in the opening game. However, an exchange of breakthroughs in the third and fourth games opened up the Spaniard. Petrova didn’t
cut loose on the Spaniard and won another breakthrough in the seventh game that earned her a lead of 4-3. She bagged the following serve game to further consolidate her position.
However, world number 22, Petrova, was serving for the set when she was powered down by the Spaniard to keep the set alive and level the scores at 5-5. The turnaround was soon suppressed with an onslaught from the Russian that
witnessed another breakthrough for her in the following game. She bagged the final serve game with little resistance and stole the opening set.
Garrigues was unable to discover her sublime form; wasn’t able to fire in the first serve correctly and failed to exert any sort of pressure on her rival. It was a bad for the 28th ranked Spaniard. However, despite poor
run of form, she was able to hang on to her serves for the first six games. The Russian superstar broke the shackles in the following game and took a lead of 4-3.
Petrova saved a breakpoint in the following game to hold serve and broke serve again to 15:40 that ended the match in her favour. She became the second player to reach the quarter-final stage of the tournament and contests against
the third seed Slovak, Dominika Cibulkova, for a place in the last four of the tournament.
Cibulkova is in thunderous form at the moment; powering down her opponents like cheese cakes. However, the possibility of an upset is always there and Petrova has the ability to power down the superior ranked players on her day.
It will be an enthralling battle to say the least.
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