Svetlana Kuznetsova pounds Christina McHale to move into the last eight – ASB Classic 2012
Russian world number 19, Svetlana Kuznetsova, finally clinched her first win in her third encounter of professional career against the 19-years-old American, Christina McHale, in the second round of ASB Classic tournament on Wednesday.
An easy straight set win for the Russian ensured her place a quarter-final berth; match lasted for just over an hour and Kuznetsova claimed the win with a score of 6-1, 6-1.
Previous two encounters between the two players were played last year. The first encounter was contested in March during Indian Wells, where Kuznetsova lost in straight sets and then again repeated the results in August, during
New Haven Open. She desperately needed a comprehensive win to stop this onslaught of victories from the American teenager and she posed a magnificent performance to top McHale this time round.
The Russian ignited the opener with a successful serve game and carried her momentum into the second game to clinch the first break of the match. She continued to hammer her opponent to all parts of the court and managed to win
the third game; it was a bit of struggle for her to hold on to her serve, as McHale deuced twice but composed Russian didn’t make a mistake.
The American was pretty ordinary with her serves, failing to hang on to her serves. The Russian broke once again in the fourth game to take 4-0 lead and further enhanced her lead by holding on to her serve. With a 5-0 score on
board and American looking completely down and out, everyone sensed a pretty one sided encounter. Russian just spared one game for the American before she managed to bag the first set to her favour.
Such an emphatic triumph in the first set demoralized the teenager who is still going through that learning phase; she still needs to groom herself and learn the traits of handling pressure and onslaught from the opponent. Second
set was not any different from the first one, as the Russian stamped her authority once again.
McHale started the second set in dismal manner, losing her first serve game to her opponent; Russian doubled her lead and broke again to push the score to 3-0 in her favour. No mistakes in the fourth game saw her winning another
game that enhanced her lead to 4-0. The teenager managed to hung on to her serve but that was the nothing else than a consolation. Kuznetsova sealed the by winning another break in the seventh game.
Svetlana Kuznetsova marches into the quarter-final and squares off against Italian Sara Errani.
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