Shuai Peng defeats Abigail Spears; cruises into the quarters at Brussels Ladies Open
Eight seeded Chinese Shuai Peng slaughtered American qualifier Abigail Spears with a breadstick at 2011 Open de Bruxelles, a red clay court tournament held in Brussels, Belgium. She registered a 6-2, 6-0 victory over the 29-year-old
American to advance into the quarter-finals on Wednesday.
World number 31 Peng took sixty-six minutes to triumph over the world number 396 Spears for the first time in their third meeting. After earning this success at Royal Primerose Tennis Club, the Chinese lowered the trail against
Spears by 1-2.
25-year-old Peng savaged into the opening set and reeled off first three games in a row before the American could hold on. The Chinese than held her remaining serves spectacularly and broke Spears’ serves again in the last game
to clinch with a 6-2 win. She saved the only breakpoint faced and converted two out of nine breakpoint opportunities to her advantage to win easily.
The seeded Chinese sailed her winning ways into the final set and easily won all six games in a row to seal the set with a bagel. She produced a lower first serve share of 59 percent as compared to Spears’ 65 percent but registered
an impressive 77 percent win on it. Peng saved both breakpoints conceded and converted all three breakpoint opportunities to her advantage to seal the deal in straight sets.
Peng is in awesome form this season as she made semi-final berths at Auckland, Hobart and Charleston, and made quarter-final berths at Pattaya, Doha and Indian Wells. However, she was standing on a three match losing streak before
entering this WTA Premier event.
The American, on the other hand, hasn’t had much progress this season and was standing on a five match losing streak before entering in this event. She triumphed over Chinese wild card Zi Yan, sixth seeded Georgian Oksana Kalashnikova
and Argentinean Paula Ormaechea in the qualifiers. Spears then dumped South African Chanelle Scheepers with a breadstick to reach this spot.
Up next for the Chinese is the winner of the match between fourth seeded Serb Jelena Jankovic and Swede Sofia Arvidsson and Peng can overpower anyone if she keeps her form.
Tags: