Roberta Vinci battles past Jelena Dokic to clinch title win – UNICEF Open 2011
In an all veterans match, seventh seeded Italian Roberta Vinci rallied past Australian Jelena Dokic in three sets mouth watering match to triumph at UNICEF Open 2011, an ATP World Tour 250 series grass court event, on Sunday. She
overcame the Aussie’s threat by registering 6-7(7), 6-3, 7-5 victory at s-Hertogenbosch, Netherlands.
Both 28-year-old displayed solid tennis after making use of their extensive experience of the game. However, the Italian edged past Dokic, ranked 16 places below her, by troublesome three sets on their first head-to-head match.
Ranked 29th in the Sony Ericsson WTA Premier rankings, Vinci bounced from a set down to wipe out Aussie’s threat in over two hours. She fought back hard in the opening set and after exchanging a break, the Italian dragged
the set to a tie-breaker.
Dokic, on the other side of net, found four breakpoint chances in the set and clobbered a slightly higher first serve share of 65 percent as compared to Italian’s 61 percent. She then prevailed in the tie-breaker to pounce over
Vinci with a 7-6(7) score line.
The Palermo resident, Vinci found her rhythm in the second set. She pocketed entire serves by hammering arsenal of powerful, flat blasts from the ground and converted the only breakpoint opportunity to his advantage to clinch the
equaliser with a convincing 6-3 win. The Italian capitalised on many unforced errors and four double faults Dokic committed and produced an amazing first serve share of 73 percent as opposed to Aussie’s 43 percent.
The Italian kept momentum floating into the final set and was serving for the match point at 5-4 when Dokic roared back and levelled the scores. Vinci then broke back again in the proceeding game and held his serve in the last
game to seal the decider by winning seven games to five. She produced a higher first serve share of 59 percent as compared to Aussie’s 44 percent and registered a plausibly 61 percent win on it.
"We are both 28 and have a lot of experience, but it was a final and with all of the conditions and pressure, it's not easy to stay completely focused," Vinci said after the match. "But I like to play on grass. I play the slice
and it's perfect on grass. I also like volleying so I think that's why I play well on grass. I'm tired and am playing on Monday at Wimbledon, but I'm happy - I just won a tournament!"
The Italian won her first title on grass and shelved her fifth WTA title. She is entering Wimbledon, third of the four Grand Slam event held on grass court, in full confidence now.
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