Petra Cetkovska plonks Alexandra Panova to book a spot in round two – Estoril Open 2012
World number 28, Petra Cetkovska of Czech Republic, dumped the 76th ranked Russian, Alexandra Panova, in straight sets 6-2, 6-1 to book a spot in the second round of the Estoril Open on Tuesday.
It was a classic one-sided domination and the 27-year-old Czech showed her supreme class at the clay courts of Portugal entertaining the crowd thoroughly for 66 minutes.
Both players were encountering one another for the first time but the Czech starlet showed no nerves and wasted no time in reading the game style of her counterpart. She broke serve thrice on the trot to register an unassailable
lead of 5-0.
It looked like the 23-year-old Russian was going to face an embarrassing bagel but she did well to save some pride by breaking serve in the sixth game and winning the first game of the match. Both players held their respective
serves in the following two games that rounded off the opening set proceedings in quick succession.
Nothing changed in the second set as well and it was all about the Czech contestant who stunned everyone with her mind-startling winners down the line. She introduced some drop shots as well that completely dismantled the confidence
of the Russian.
Panova never settled in the game, missing a number of shots and struck quite a few double-faults that further eased the situation for the Czech. It seemed like the Russian was trying a bit too hard to win points and not playing
her natural game at all. She was unable to stop the onslaught of her opponent continuously dropped serve games after bagging the first one in the opening game.
Cetkovska was pounding on her rival; pocketed three more breakpoints in a row to confirm her place in the second round draws of the tournament. It was getting pretty ominous for the Russian who surrendered in just over an hour.
Petra Cetkovska will contest against booming British tennis professional, Heather Watson, who is just 19-year-old. It will be an enthralling battle considering a sublime run of form of the teen who has been registering major upsets
in the recent past. She outplayed the Czech starlet, Lucie Hradecka, in the opening round to book a date with the Czech.
There has been no upsets for any seeded players at the moment but anything can happen especially with the talent like Watson who is capable of bringing any player down on her day.
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