Pavlyuchenkova/Safarova stuns Huber/Raymond to reach final – Family Circle Cup 2012
Wild card entrants, Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova and Lucie Safarova, upset the top seeded local stars, Liezel Huber and Lisa Raymond, in straight sets at the Family Circle Cup 2012 on Saturday. They formulated a 6-4, 7-6(9) victory over the Americans to secure
a place in the final showdown at this green clay court event held in Charleston, United States.
The in-form Russian-Czech junction lost their serve three times but capitalised on four out of five break opportunities to earn the spot light. After dominating in this one hour and 33-minutes marathon, they convincingly advanced into the title-round at
this WTA (Women’s Tennis Association) Premier event.
The unseeded tandem thundered into the Family Circle Tennis Center and carved out the first blood in the opening game to take the initial lead. Regardless of levelling the scores at 2-2, Pavlyuchenkova and Safarova capitalised on another break chance in
the fifth game and took the lead once more. They then held remaining serves with conviction and sealed the opener by winning six games to four.
Pavlyuchenkova and Safarova kept momentum floating in the proceeding set and held their serve in the second game to square the scores at 1-1. Later, the Russian-Czech pair held their composure until they got the coveted break in the seventh game, consequently
taking a 4-3 lead. They lost their serve in the very next game but took the lead again in the ninth game after converting another break chance to their advantage. However, the beaming pair squandered their chance to serve out the match, ultimately enforcing
a tie-breaker. They edged past their opponents’ in it and clinched the set with a 7-6(9) score line.
Summing up the winning team’s performance, Pavlyuchenkova and Safarova produced a slightly lower first serve share of 64 per cent as compared to their rivals’ 65 per cent and brilliantly clicked 31 out of 45 points on it.
Next up for the conquerors is the Spanish-Kazakh duo of Anabel Medina Garrigues and Yaroslava Shvedova. Garrigues and Shvedova trashed the South African-Czech pair of Natalie Grandin and Vladimira Uhlirova with a breadstick to set-up this battle. They lost
their serve three times and broke their rivals serve seven times to earn the glory.
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