Simona Halep upsets Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova in the opening round – Dubai Championships 2012
Age fellows, Simona Halep and Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova, squared-off for the second time in their professional careers on Tuesday for the opening round battle of the Dubai Duty Free Championships. The Romanian capsized the Russian
in straight sets 6-4, 6-2 and confirmed a second round spot in an hour and 24 minutes.
In 2008, Halep crushed the then-top seeded Russian in straight sets in the quarter-final of the Australian Open (juniors) contest. It seems like she is playing mind games with the 15th ranked Russian who is unable to
solve her puzzle.
Halep came all the way from the qualifiers and started her main round battle with a successful serve hold. She broke her opponent’s serve in the fourth game and carried her momentum to build up a massive lead of 4-1.
Both players swapped a couple of breakpoints in succession to finish off the first set in quick succession with the Romanian contestant flying high and setting up a foundation for a major upset.
Pavlyuchenkova organized herself and registered an impressive turnaround by gobbling up the opening two games of the second set. She had already broken her rival’s serve and was leading the scores 2-0 but Halep was not going to
go down so easily and she fought back to level the scores at 2-2.
With the momentum turning back towards the Romanian she enjoyed another breakpoint and took a pivotal lead of two games with scores ticking over to 4-2. she tried to make her way back into the contest but the luck was not at her
side.
The Russian failed to register any triumph in the closing six games of the set that confirmed the victory for the Romanian. Halep marches on the second round with a resounding triumph and an upset under her belt. She will square-off
against the former world number one and the brand ambassador of Duty Free, Caroline Wozniacki, in the second round. The Dane received a first round Bye so she is yet to open her account in Dubai.
Other contestants who registered victories in the opening round battles in Dubai on Tuesday are Agnieszka Radwanska, Lucie Safarova, Ana Ivanovic, Daniela Hantuchova and Shuai Peng. A major unfortunate event of the day was the
retirement of Dominika Cibulkova who could only survive four games in the match against Iveta Benesova before pulling her hamstring.
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