Svetlana Kuznetsova crushed Lara Arruabarrena-Veci in the quarter-final of the Andalucia Tennis Experience
World number 14, Svetlana Kuznetsova of Russia had a comprehensive victory over the 19-year-old Spanish qualifier, Lara Arruabarrena-Veci in the quarter-final of the Andalucia Tennis Experience at Marbella, Spain on Friday noon.
The second seed Russian wound up her straight sets victory in the most assertive manner at 6-1, 6-2, taking barely 67 minutes of play.
25-year-old Russian exhibited her vintage class to overwhelm her inexperienced opponent and register her 14th win of the running WTA (Women’s Tennis Association) season. Kuznetsova has been straining hard to outplay
her opponents in the initial two rounds of the tournament, dropping the opening set on both occasions. She appeared in a destructive mood on Friday noon and simply wiped out the last of the local hope in the $220,000 WTA event by defeating Veci.
The Spaniard proved a total mismatch for the second seed competitor and rarely posed a serious challenge to Kuznetsova in the quarter-final. Veci tried to break shackles at two times in the contest by breaking the Russian serve
but her strong opponent overturned the game on her with her aggressive game play. Kuznetsova crafted 13 chances to break her rival’s serve and she converted seven opportunities from them to take the match to her name.
Veci’s first serve accuracy of 71 per cent was better than the Russian’s 65 but she collected a mere 11 out of 31 total serve points in the opener. Kuznetsova kept nicking points on regularity and had a strict control over her
unforced errors, the weakness which almost cost her recent two matches. She conceded no double fault in the whole matchup and made the most of her opportunities to come out as the winner.
The opening set all belonged to the mighty Russian, who clouted four breaks to the opponent’s serve. Veci secured a break point in the third game but the pressure exerted by Kuznetsova was much taxing. The Spanish teenager failed
to meet the pace of her opponent’s game and spilled out a number of errors to exacerbate her position in the contest. The Russian stung three consecutive serve breaks to rocket away to 6-1, bagging the first set of the match.
The Spaniard slumped further in the next set and dropped her serve in the very first game. She registered her second serve break of the match to cut the deficit to 2-4 but Kuznetsova had got the required momentum to race to victory.
She concluded the matchup at 6-2 and booked a spot in the semis of the Andalucia Tennis Experience.
Up next for Kuznetsova is the Romanian qualifier, Irina-Camelia Begu, who upset the sixth seed Klara Zakopalova in straight sets, 6-3, 6-3, en route to semi-finals. The Russian had to get past Begu before she earns a shot at the
Marbella title in the final.
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