Shahar Peer defeats Alisa Kleybanova; reaches third round of 2011 Internazionali BNL d’Italia
Seeded 10th at 2011 Internazionali BNL D’Italia, Shahar Peer eased past Russian Alisa Kleybanova to book her third round berth at the Women’s Tennis Association tournament. Peer required 1 hour and 46 minutes securing
a comfortable 6-3, 7-5 victory on Wednesday.
The Israeli tennis-pro started off in fine fashion and looked to attack her opponent with every available opportunity. Her first chance of breaking the serve arrived in third game of the set. Peer smashed a brilliant forehand winner
to take 2-1 lead in the set. She continued to pressurise the challenger throughout and made another serve break to clinch the opener 6-3.
The following set was also played on a similar pattern. The contestants managed to win their service games quite comfortably but struggled to claim a game on serve return. However when the score was tied at 4-4, Peer came up with
an astonishing combination of shots to make the crucial serve break. She held on to her next serve game to seal the match in straight sets.
Peer was extremely delighted at advancing into the next round of the premier clay court tournament. She has been struggling to find her form since the start of this season and will take a lot of confidence from her win over world
number 26 Kleybanova. Following her inconsistent performances on the tour the Israeli tennis-pro has slipped to world number 14 in the WTA rankings. She will be hoping to break into top 10 with a solid performance here in Rome.
Peer served with deadly accuracy and achieved 68 percent first serve conversion. Also a share of 56 percent points in serve return area of the game allowed her to execute her game plan with confidence. She adopted close to the
net strategy and used her lovely drop shots to bamboozle her opponent. Besides her great attacking abilities, Peer had a rock solid defence as well as she saved three out of six break points in the match. Her next match-up will be against former world number
one Maria Sharapova who made quick work of Ekaterina Makarova 6-1, 6-1 to reach that far. Sharapova is leads the head-to-head record between the players by 4-0 and is a favourite for this match.
Kleybanova on the other hand struggled to get to the ball and committed a number of unforced errors in the process. She made a very shaky start to the match and over hit her forehand and backhand shots on several occasions. It
seemed that she has lost all the confidence in her shots as she struggled to time the ball right till the end. The Russian experienced certain problems while serving and she managed only 48 percent first serve conversion.
Tags: