Petra Martic labours past Elena Vesnina into 2nd round – Western & Southern Open 2011
Croatian qualifier Petra Martic bounces from a set down to earn a three setter victory against the Russian Elena Vesnina at the opening round of the Western & Southern Open 2011, a hard court tournament from the US Open series
held in the Cincinnati suburb of Mason, Ohio, USA. She earned a 3-6, 7-6(5), 6-0 victory over the 25-year-old Russian to advance into the second round on Monday.
Ranked 72nd in the Sony Ericsson WTA Premier rankings, Martic upset in-form Russian, ranked twenty-nine places above her, in a tricky three setter match at the Lindner Family Tennis Center. After earning this two hours
and seven minutes success, the Croat took lead in the head-to-head series by 1-0 against Vesnina and also secured a second round spot at this $2,000,000 event.
The Russian made quick in-roads on the Ohio hard courts as she earned the desiderated break in the opening game to take the initial lead. Vesnina then held remaining games through blistering forehands from her box of tricks and
broke the Croat’s serve again to seal the opener by winning six games to three. She never conceded a breakpoint and capitalised on two out of five breakpoint opportunities to her advantage to win easily.
20-year-old Croat carried her losing ways in the second set and after gifting away her opening serve, she fell 3-0 down. Martic quickly counter attacked and wiped out next three games in a row. Both tennis stars then kept their
remaining serves convincingly and dragged the set to a tie-breaker. The Croat dominated in it to pocket the equaliser with a 7-6(5) score line.
Martic perfected her game in the final as she unleashed barrage of powerful groundstrokes to reel off all six games in a row. The Croat was never threatened with a breakpoint and cashed in on all three breakpoint opportunities
to her advantage to earn the bagel.
Overall, the lower ranked Croat committed ten double faults and produced a lower first serve share of 52 percent as opposed to Vesnina’s 62 percent but she registered a spectacular 82 percent win on it. She then smacked four ferocious
aces to put a cherry on her stats.
Up next for the Croat is the winner of the match between seventeenth seeded Belgian Yanina Wickmayer and Serbian qualifier Bojana Jovanovski. If Martic stays focus and improve her defensive skills, she can stun anyone including
seeded players and can move far in this Premier 5 event.
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