Roberta Vinci executes Lenka Jurikova to breeze into second round – Budapest Grand Prix 2011
Top seeded Italian Roberta Vinci cruised past Slovakian qualifier Lenka Jurikova with a breadstick and a bagel at POLI-FARBE Budapest Grand Prix, a clay court tournament held in Budapest, Hungary. 20-year-old Slovak couldn’t hold
on to her serve and eventually exited from the opening round with a terrible 1-6, 0-6 defeat on Tuesday.
Vinci, currently at her career best rank at 25th in the Sony Ericsson WTA Premier rankings, took sixty-seven minutes to slay the qualifier, ranked 228 places below her, with a brilliant 6-1, 6-0 score line. After earning
this victory on their first meeting, the Italian not only took lead in their head-to-head series by 1-0 but also advanced into the second round of this WTA Premier International event.
28-year-old Italian flashed into the opening set where she lost her serve once but bagged remaining six games to earn a breadstick. She clobbered a lower first serve share of 62 percent as compared to Slovak’s 80 percent but registered
a convincing 50 percent win on it. She then saved nine out of ten breakpoints faced and converted three out of seven breakpoint chances to her advantage to put cherry on the set.
Taranto native Vinci perfected her gameplay in the final set as she completely outshined Jurikova in every department of tennis. She produced a higher first serve share of 75 percent as opposed to Slovak’s 50 percent and earned
an impressive 67 percent win on it. In addition to this, she saved the only breakpoint faced and converted all three breakpoint opportunities to her advantage to reel off all six games in a row.
"The score may suggest an easy match but it was tough," said Vinci, the highest ranked player of the tournament. "However, my opponent made many mistakes, especially in the important moments, and I was focused, served well and
played a lot of spin shots that she apparently didn't like."
The Italian is in good shape this season. She had many ups and down in 2011 as she made a semi-final appearance at Pattaya but was ousted in the opening rounds from Australian Open, Doha, Indian Wells, Miami, Marbella, Stuttgart,
Rome and Birmingham. Vinci, however, covered her deficit by clinching the titles at Barcelona and s-Hertogenbosch. She lost from the third round from Wimbledon by the eventual champion Petra Kvitova before entering this WTA event.
Up next for the veteran is Hungarian wild card entrant, Timea Babos who downed lucky loser, Italian Anna Giulia Remondina in straight sets later that day to set up this duel.
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