Samantha Stosur crushes Ekaterina Makarova in round three – Western and Southern Open 2012
World number six, Samantha Stosur, cruised into the quarter-finals of the Western and Southern Open on the eve of Thursday at the expense of the 44th ranked Russian star, Ekaterina Makarova, who lost in straight sets
1-6, 3-6 in just over an hour and 10 minutes.
Stosur begin with a serve hold to love and continued to fight for a breakpoint for almost 12 minutes in the second game and finally clinched it on the third attempt.
It was a poor start for the 24-year-old Russian who was eyeing to not give an early edge to her opponent but she was forced to bow down after an intense struggle in the second game.
The proceedings had an effect on the overall game play of Makarova who drowned to a trail of 1-4 after failing to break serve back and earning an opportunity for an equalizer.
Stosur was on roll; smashing two serve holds to love out of three and went on to crush her opponent down with a mind-startling cross court winner to win the second breakpoint of the match.
She led the scores 5-1 at that stage and the third serve hold to love ended the set in her favour. It was a terrible start for someone who had shown a lot of promise in the first two stages of the tournament.
Makarova commenced the second set with a serve hold but not before she was forced to save a breakpoint.
However, the scare was over as both players managed to hold serves for the first four games and hinted at a tight battle in the second half of the match.
It was the Aussie superstar who broke serve for the first time in the fifth game and took a lead of 3-2. She held her serve with utmost conviction and stamped her authority by consolidating on to that lead.
The Russian kept on trailing with two games as the scores moved on to 3-5. She couldn’t hold her serve in the following game and gifted the win to the 28-year-old Aussie star.
Stosur plays Venus Williams in the next round.
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