Svetlana Kuznetsova dumps Mirjana Lucic to clear the opening round – French Open 2012
Russian veteran, Svetlana Kuznetsova, was among the other big guns to clear the opening round of the French Open on Sunday. The 26th seed Russian overwhelmed the unseeded Croatian competitor, Mirjana Lucic, in straight
sets, 6-1, 6-3, to march into the second round of the clay-court Grand Slam event at the Roland Garros in Paris, France.
It was a pretty one-sided encounter between these two competitors, who were facing each other for the first time in their professional careers. Kuznetsova was riding a three-match losing streak before coming to the Roland Garros
and an opening round victory might prove extremely vital for her to boost up her confidence in her Grand Slam voyage.
Lucic bettered her Russian in many aspects of the game but it appeared to be just a matter of time that Kuznetsova kept winning the all-crucial point on regularity to come out as the winner. The Croat contender struck 23 winners
in the match in reply to her opponent’s just seven. The number of break point conversions from the Russian proved to be the decisive factor in the contest, as Kuznetsova nailed six out of eight opportunities and Lucic lagged far behind with just two out of
her eight chances. The Croatian’s 42 unforced errors also played a vital role in her downfall on Sunday, as she kept spilling errant shots long and wide of the tennis court to gift easy points to her rival.
"Even before I won here I always enjoyed coming here. I love this tournament," Kuznetsova said after booking a berth in the second round of the French Open. "Today I was playing pretty well, pretty focused. I did what I planned
to do before the match with my coach. At some stage it turned around a little bit, but then I fought back from 3-all to win the second set."
Kuznetsova lifted the French Open gold in 2009 and desires to repeat the similar magical feat this season. She will face the winner of the opening round battle between Chan Yung-Jan and Kateryna Bondarenko in the second round of
the Grand Slam event later this week.
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