Polona Hercog ousts Carla Suarez Navarro in the 2nd round – Hansol Korea Open 2011
Number five seeded Polona Hercog collided against Espanola Carla Suarez Navarro in the second round draw of the Hansol Korea Open 2011 on the 21st of September 2011. After contesting for one hour and thirty five minutes
of the match Slovenian Hercog won with a 6-3, 7-5 victory.
The two players were not meeting for the first time and were familiar with each other’s style and performance as they had previously competed against each other twice in 2010. The first time they had met was during the semi final
round of the Acapulco Open where Hercog had taken the lead in their head to head. However, Navarro was not to be left behind and during the same year made a comeback when she defeated Hercog at the Marbella event held in Spain.
The first to serve was Navarro, who had just survived the first round match against Eva Birnerova and as she initiated the first round, she fell short as she was broken in the first game by Hercog but Navarro was not going down
without a fight and broke back to even the score at 1-1.
Both the players then rallied for a while and were continuously winning on their respective serves in the following four games to balance the score at 3-3. At such a pivotal point of the match, either of the players could’ve secured
a place in the quarter final but Hercog was a better player and was able to smash a backhand volley down the line to snatch the game away from Navarro.
During the eighth game Hercog held her serve and while capitalizing on the mini break she took, she then further went on to breaking her adversary in the game and bagged an easy victory over the Espanola.
Opening the second set of the match was Hercog, who not only won on her serve in the first game but also nicked her adversary’s game right off her hands and by holding her own in the third game, she was now leading with a 3-0 on
the scoreboard.
Although, Hercog kept an assertive style of play, Navarro fought back and was able to accomplish her service game in the fourth game and then in the fifth got back at her adversary by breaking her. Eventually by the end of the
sixth game she had managed to equalize the score at 3-3.
During the following four games the players battled a blow for a blow and tied each other’s score at 5-5. By the end of the eleventh game Hercog held her serve but from the looks of it, it seemed that Navarro would push the set
into a tie breaker but as Navarro served nervously, she double faulted during her second serve and endorsed Hercog with a point.
Hercog won the match and was able to secure a place in the quarterfinal of the event where she will be facing fourth seeded wildcard entrant Dominika Cibulkova.
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