Nadia Petrova undoes Kateryna Bondarenko; breezes into fourth round – Wimbledon Championships 2011
Russia’s Nadia Petrova eased past Ukraine’s Kateryna Bondarenko in straight sets to cruise into the fourth round of the Wimbledon Championships 2011, third of the fourth Grand Slam event held in London, England. She earned a 6-3,
6-2 success over Bondarenko, a former top thirty, on Friday.
Ranked 37th in the Sony Ericsson WTA Premier rankings, Petrova re-created her magic, of her run in 2006 when she was at her career peek at number three, to best the Ukrainian in their third meeting. The Russian lost
to Ukrainian in their first meeting at Paris in 2008 but she took revenge later that year by overwhelming Bondarenko’s threat at Linz in a three set thriller. Now facing after three years, Petrova showed her class again to trash the Ukrainian in just over
an hour to take the lead in their head-to-head series by 2-1.
29-year-old Russian smoothly entered at Court fourteen and held her serve through blistering forehands from her box of tricks. She then found the desiderated break in the fourth game to extend the lead by 3-1 but to her dismal
performance in the proceeding game, Petrova lost her serve in the fifth game. However, the Russian smoothly kept her remaining serves and broke the Ukrainian’s serve again in the eighth game to eventually seal the opener with a 6-3 score line in thirty-nine
minutes.
Petrova lost her ways into the final set as she lost her opening serve to trail 0-2. However, the Russian roared back by unleashing flurry of groundstroke to reel off next six games in a row and clinched the set with a 6-2 win.
Overall, the Russian produced a slightly lower first serve share of 62 percent as compared to Bondarenko’s 63 percent but registered a fabulous 71 percent win on it. In addition to this, she smashed eight powerful aces and converted
five out of nine breakpoint opportunities to her advantage to help clinch comfortably.
Petrova will next face the winner of the match between twenty-fifth seeded Slovak Daniela Hantuchova and fourth seeded Belarusian Victoria Azarenka.
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