Silvia Soler-Espinosa stuns Anabel Medina Garrigues to reach the quarter-finals – Estoril Open 2012
World number 66, Silvia Soler-Espinosa, stunned the defending champion, Anabel Medina Garrigues of Spain, in an epic three-setter 3-6, 6-3, 7-5 to book a spot in the quarter-final stage of the Estoril Open on Wednesday.
Both players belong to Spain and are famous for their supreme play on clay courts. They entertained the crowd for two hours and 34 minutes before the inferior ranked Spanish registered a major upset of the day. Garrigues was the
third seed contestant in the tournament and became the first one to be knocked out of the competition that later on proved to be one of the most cursed days for all seeded players.
In a post-match interview, Espinosa confessed, "It was our first time playing and it was really tough. She plays really well on clay and was playing a lot of spin to my backhand. She was doing it really well in the first set. But
at the end I was able to get to my forehand more. She wished me good luck for the tournament afterwards."
Garrigues started off well by holding on to her first and second serve games and breaking serve in the fourth battle that gave her a lead of 3-1. Apart from that, both players registered easy serve holds in the rest of the set
that gave an early lead to the defending champion.
However, she knew little about comeback abilities of her opponent. The second set witnessed a tight battle for the first seven games before the third seed dropped a breakpoint and went down 3-5. It was a golden opportunity for
the 24-year-old in form Spaniard to level the set scores and she did that in style; smashing a couple of aces towards the end.
The odds were still favouring the 32nd ranked Spaniard who started the final set in emphatic fashion; winning four of the first five points to register a thumping serve hold. A similar reply from the inferior ranked
Spaniard astonished everyone at the arena.
Espinosa was full of confidence and a swap of breakpoints in the following two games kept the scores together at 2-2. Both players exchanged breakpoints for the second time in the set and registered serve holds to push the scores
at 5-5. It was a tense moment and the experience number one Spanish star couldn’t absorb the pressure; gifted a breakpoint that was coupled with a thunderous serve hold to finish off the match in grand fashion.
Espinosa faces Carla Suarez Navarro in the next round.
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