Vera Dushevina breezes into the second round of the Internazionali BNL D’Italia
Russian Vera Dushevina slew Japanese Ayumi Morita with a breadstick on Monday to advance into the second round of the 2011 Internazionali BNL D’Italia, a clay court tournament held in Rome, Italy. She registered a 6-3, 6-1 victory over the 21-year-old Japanese.
Ranked 60th in the WTA Premier rankings, Dushevina has a poor record this season and entered this WTA Premier 5 on a five match losing streak. However, she re-formed at Foro Italico and snapped out of the streak by slaying the Japanese, ranked four places above her, with a breadstick in seventy-eight minutes.
24-year-old showed exceptional skills in the first set and held her opening serve spectacularly. Although the Russian produced a slightly lower first serve share and lost her serve twice, she converted four out of six breakpoint opportunities to her advantage to win the opener with a convincing 6-3 score line.
Dushevina raised her level of game in the final set as he lost one game but reeled off six games to earn the breadstick. She clobbered more double faults but converted both breakpoint opportunities to her advantage to win easily. In addition to this, the Russian smashed two aces, faced zero breakpoints and dominated throughout the match.
Morita on the other side of net hasn’t had much progress this season except for making a quarter-final berth at Kuala Lumpur. She showed no spirit in the match and didn’t capitalise on the Russian’s errors. The Japanese earned a poor 46 percent win on her higher first serve share and saved only two out of eight breakpoint faced.
The Russian will next face the winner of the match between 16th seeded compatriot Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova and South African qualifier Chanelle Scheepers.
Joining Dushevina will be another Russian, Elena Vesnina who triumphed over Austrian Tamira Paszek in straight sets later that day.
Vesnina, who is in her top form this season and recently reached final at Charleston before losing to world number one Caroline Wozniacki, took one hour and forty-five minutes to down the 20-year-old Paszek. The Russian had won two doubles title this season as well.
24-year-old Vesnina saved eight out of ten breakpoint faced and converted four out of nine breakpoint opportunities to her advantage to clinch the match with a 6-4, 6-4 score line.
Up next for Vesnina is eight seeded Polish Agnieszka Radwanska who received a first round bye for being a top eight player of this tournament.
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