Shuai Peng defeats Sofia Arvidsson; breezes into the semis at Brussels Ladies Open
Eight seeded Chinese Shuai Peng downed a former top thirty player, Swede Sofia Arvidsson in straight sets at 2011 Open de Bruxelles, a red clay court tournament held in Brussels, Belgium. She registered a 6-2, 6-4 win over the
27-year-old Swede to advance into the semi-finals on Thursday.
25-year-old Chinese stormed into the opening set and hammered blistering forehands to reel off first three games in a row. Later, she smoothly held her remaining serves and broke Swede’s serve again in the last game to clinch the
set with an assuring 6-2 score line. Peng produced an acceptable first serve share of 75 percent as compared to slightly lower of Arvidsson’s 72 percent and registered an amazing 87 percent win on it. She faced zero breakpoints and converted two out of five
breakpoint opportunities to her advantage.
The seeded Peng lost her ways into the final set and lost her serve in the third game to trail 1-2. However, she quickly roared back in the sixth games to level the scores at 3-3. The Chinese then kept her remaining serves plausibly
and broke the Swede’s serve again in the last game to seal the set with a 6-4 win. She earned an impressive 74 percent win on her higher first serve share and converted two out of four breakpoint opportunities to her advantage.
World number 31, Peng has had a good season so far. Although she hasn’t reached any final yet, she has made semi-final berths at Auckland, Hobart and Charleston. The Chinese reached far in the remaining tournaments as well but
was standing on a three match losing streak before entering at Royal Primerose Tennis Club. She re-formed here and triumphed over Belgian wild card enterer Kirsten Flipkens and American qualifier Abigail Spears with bagels to face the Swede.
World number 76, Arvidsson, on the other hand, hasn’t had much progress this season so far. The furthest she reached this season was in this WTA Premier event. The Swede trashed American Coco Vandeweghe in straight sets in the
first round and stunned fourth seeded Serb Jelena Jankovic in a three set thriller in the second round. Despite clobbering fewer double faults and saving five breakpoints faced, she converted only one out of four breakpoint opportunities to her advantage to
exit from this tournament.
Next challenge for Peng is the winner of the match between second seeded Russian Vera Zvonareva and seventh seeded Romanian Alexandra Dulgheru.
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