Sorana Cirstea plonks Ying-Ying Duan to reach the quarters - Guangzhou Int’l Women's Open 2012
World number 30, Sorana Cirstea, outclassed the 154th ranked Chinese player, Ying-Ying Duan, in the second round of the GRC Bank Guangzhou International Women's Open; winning the clash in straight sets 6-1, 7-6(0) in
just an hour and 24 minutes.
Cirstea smashed three aces and converted 79 percent of the first serves in her favour. She was absolutely lethal with her backhand, sparing not a single opportunity to bamboozle her opponent with fast returns. The Chinese had just
one opportunity to break serve which was also saved by the 22-year-old Romanian.
A total of 33 points was won by Cirstea in the opening set compared to just 17 of her rival. Out of those 33, she captured two of the allotted five breakpoints to take that were won during the first four games of the match. She
sealed a stupendous lead of 5-0 at the start of the match that gave no opportunity at all to her rival to make any sort of comeback.
The second set witnessed a display of shear power and class from the Romanian right-handed athlete. She smashed in five aces and committed just one double-fault throughout the set. An impressive first serve conversion rate of 77
percent helped the third seed Romanian to exert pressure on her rival who was meeting blow-by-blow to her opponent.
Duan, 23-year-old, saved four breakpoints and converted one of the three in the return games to keep the scores level. Cirstea was trailing at 1-3 after losing a breakpoint to her rival but bounce back into the match in a ‘do or
die’ game that diminished the trail to just 4-5. The Romanian was under the cosh in the 10th game but she did well to hang on tie the scores at 5-5.
In a tie-breaker round, no point was won by the local professional and the visitor easily grabbed the quarter-final berth on the morning of Wednesday. Sorana Cirstea will be up against the likes of the eighth seed Frenchwoman,
Alize Cornet, who barely had to make an effort for the second round triumph as her opponent withdrew due to injury after losing the first set.
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