Serena Williams slaughters Anabel Medina Garrigues in round three – Internazionali BNL D’Italia 2012
Ninth seed, Serena Williams, crippled the Spanish number one, Anabel Medina Garrigues, with a breadstick at the Internazionali BNL D’Italia 2012 on Thursday. She jolted down a 6-3, 6-1 victory against the Spanish veteran to power into the quarter-finals
at Foro Italico in Rome, Italy.
The former world number one, Williams, stayed on track to bag her third year-to-date title after triumphing over Medina Garrigues for the first time. After stealing the show in one hour and 16 minutes, the American cruised into the final eight at this WTA
(Women’s Tennis Association) Premier Five event.
"I've played here for a long time and I've had a lot of memorable matches on Pietrangeli court," Williams was quoted in a courtside interview after the match. "Today reminded me of when I was young."
Williams assertively stepped on the Italian red courts and smoothly swiped in her entire serves after brushing off all three breakpoints she came across. She got the breakthrough in the sixth game by cashing in lone break chance and clicked the opener with
a 6-3 win.
Sixth ranked Williams raised the bar of her game in the second set. After Medina Garrigues held her serve in the opening game, the American unleashed barrage of groundstrokes to go on a six-game killing spree and sealed the set with a breadstick.
All in all, the 30-year-old clobbered a poor first serve share of 55 per cent as compared to her rival’s 70 per cent and impressively clicked 17 out of 24 points on it. She also smashed four aces and capitalised on four out of five break chances to earn
the limelight.
Next up for the beaming American is the Italian star, Flavia Pennetta, who devastated the Czech contender, Petra Cetkovska, with a bagel to set-up this meeting.
The world number two, Maria Sharapova of Russia, also earned the glory earlier that day. She fended off early resistance to topple Serbia’s Ana Ivanovic in one hour and 47 minutes.
The blooming Russian will square off against her fellow former world number one, Venus Williams, who shocked fifth seeded Samantha Stosur in straight sets to set-up this match.
Tags: