Polona Hercog stuns Andrea Petkovic at Internazionali BNL D’Italia
Slovenian qualifier Polona Hercog upset twelfth seeded German Andrea Petkovic in straight sets at Internazionali BNL D’Italia, a clay court tournament held in Rome, Italy. She registered a 6-4, 6-3 win over the 23-year-old German
to advance into the third round on Wednesday.
The former top fifty Slovene is in good shape this season so far as she reached semi-finals at Monterrey and made a quarter-final berth at Barcelona. Despite exiting from the first round of qualifiers at Madrid, Hercog entered
this tournament with a different strategy and triumphed over Polish Urszula Radwanska and Spaniard Nuria Llagostera Vives in the qualifiers to reach the main draw. She then dumped Romanian Alexandra Dulgheru with a breadstick in the first round and after defeating
Petkovic she books a third round spot. She has yet to lose a set in this tournament.
World number 69 Slovene displayed awe-inspiring skills in this match to down the world number 15 German in one hour and forty minutes and took the lead in their head-to-head series by 2-1.
20-year-old Hercog smoothly held her opening serve to level the scores at 1-1. Later she exchanged a break and converted another breakpoint opportunity to her advantage in the ninth game to eventually seal the set by winning six
games to four.
The Slovene played well throughout the set and committed fewer unforced errors and double faults. She also produced a higher first serve share and registered an amazing 78 percent win on it. Hercog failed to save the only breakpoint
faced but converted two out of six breakpoint opportunities to her advantage.
She kept her winning ways flowing into the final set and held her opening serve again to square the scores at 1-1. Although the Slovene lost her serve once, she converted three out of six breakpoint opportunities to her advantage
to clinch the set with a 6-3 win. Hercog produced a much lost first serve share of 65 percent as opposed to German’s 82 percent, she earned an impressive 67 percent win on it.
Next up for the Slovene is the winner of the match between sixth seeded Australian Samantha Stosur and Czech Iveta Benesova.
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