Roberta Vinci defeats Alisa Kleybanova; breezes into the third round of the Mutua Madrid Open
World number 37, Italian Roberta Vinci eased past world number 25, Russian Alisa Kleybanova in straight sets on Wednesday. She registered a 6-2, 6-2 win over the Russian to advance into the third round of the 2011 Mutua Madrid
Open, a clay court tournament, held in Spain.
28-year-old Italian took just 75 minutes to overpower her higher ranked Russian rival at Park Manzanares on their second meeting. After her victory at Rome last year, Vinci trashed the 21-year-old Russian again to extend the lead
in their head-to-head series by 2-0.
The Italian has been in mediocre form this season so far. She reached quarter-final at Hobart and made a semi-final berth at Pattaya City before ending up in an eight match losing streak. Vinci then snapped out from the streak
by displaying magnificent skills at Barcelona where she won the title. She then entered this WTA Premier Mandatory event full of confidence and earned a bagel against Belarusian qualifier Olga Govortsova in the first round.
Playing Kleybanova, Vinci broke the Russian’s serve in the very first game of the opening set. She then held her opening serve plausibly to extend the lead by 2-0. The Italian lost the third game but went on savage mode to reel
off next three games in a row. Vinci eventually clinched the set with an assuring 6-2 score line by holding her serve in the eighth game.
The Italian kept winning ways into the second set and broke the youngster’s serve in the very first game. Although she lost her serve in the proceeding game, Vinci unleashed flurry of groundstrokes to win the next four games in
a row. She lost her serve in the sixth game again but re-sparked her magic to break back in the proceeding game. The lower ranked Italian then held her serve in the last game to seal the set by winning six games to Kleybanova’s two.
Up next for the Italian is the winner of the match between sixth seeded Chinese Li Na and Iveta Benesova. Both players reached this spot without losing a set against their respective rivals.
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