Sania Mirza/Elena Vesnina tumble over Dulko/Suarez to reach semis – BNP Paribas Open 2012
Defending champions, India’s Sania Mirza and Russia’s Elena Vesnina, stomped over the Argentinean wild card entrants, Gisela Dulko and Paola Suarez, in straight sets at the BNP Paribas Open 2012 on Wednesday. They nudged up a 6-2, 6-3 victory over the Argentineans
to secure a spot in the final four at this WTA (Women’s Tennis Association) Premier Mandatory event taking place in California.
The Indo-Russian duo took down the Argentinean veterans in 70 minutes to advance into the semi-finals at the Indian Wells Tennis Garden. They displayed perfect co-ordination and broke their rivals’ serve five times to pocket the match.
Mirza and Vesnina went berserk in the opening set at these Californian hard courts. They unleashed flurry of groundstrokes to reel off the opening four games in a row before Dulko and Suarez could hold on. Despite losing their serve in the sixth game, the
Indo-Russian tandem cashed in their third break chance in the follow-up game and then kept their serve once more to seal the opener with a 6-2 win.
The second seeded team kept momentum running into the proceeding set and after getting the coveted break in the third game, they cruised to a 3-1 lead. Mirza and Vesnina remained focused after that and held remaining serves by dusting away all three breakpoints
they came across. The Indo-Russian pair capitalised on another break chance in the last game and pulled out the set by winning six games to three.
Overall, the higher ranked team showed tremendous skills and stayed on track to defend their title. They formulated a lower first serve share of 52 per cent as compared to their opponents’ 63 per cent but amazingly clicked 19 out of 25 points on it. The
Indo-Russian team also brushed off five out of six breakpoints they faced and converted five out of nine break opportunities to their advantage.
They will square off against the third seeded Czechs, Andrea Hlavackova and Lucie Hradecka, in the next round. The Czechs eased past the fifth seeded Italian duo of Sara Errani and Roberta Vinci in straight sets to set-up this battle.
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