Vera Zvonareva grinds past Alison Riske in the opening round – Wimbledon Championships 2011
Vera Zvonareva of Russia came through a massive struggle against Alison Riske of America 6-0, 3-6, 6-3 in the first round of Wimbledon Champions 2011 on Monday afternoon. After one hour and 45 minutes, most of which highlighted
excellent shot-making, Zvonareva managed to book her place in the second round of the tournament.
The world number three, Zvonareva capitalized on a mediocre first serve from her American opponent to gain an early upper hand in the match, although it was not a routine loss for the American. After the proceeding opened with
five straight hold of serves, Zvonareva finally clinched the first set with a bagel win.
Having recently entrenched herself from world number 118th to 115th, Riske was not about to go down without of a fight. The American No.11 took care of her first two service games to go 2-1 in the second set.
However, a blip came right away in the next game where errors cost Riske and she was broken, but the world number 115, immediately broke back in the ninth game to clinch the second 6-3.
That provided to be enough for a firmly-improving Riske, who totally looked like different player during the second set of the match. After recording two winners to eight unforced errors in the opening set, Riske had definitely
raised the level of her game to an excellent level of perfection as the unseeded player struck a whopping twelve winners in the second set. She dropped a mere four points on her first serves and kept a tight rein on her mistakes to tie the score at one set
apiece.
However, an entertaining final set came down with a lot of break-points conversion as both women held easily en route to 3-3, right at which point things started to become very interesting. Zvonareva converted two break points
and closed the door with a magnificent serve, winning 63 percent of points on them. Riske on the other hand, started to show signs of frustration and missed her crucial match points at 5-3, when a grueling rally controlled by Riske ended with Zvonareva’s forehand
and so did the match.
Zvonareva, to her credit, put up a great fight and managed to conclude the match in 106 minutes of play. She now moves on ahead to play compatriot, Elena Vesnina in the second round of the tournament. Both women will do the battle
for the seventh time in their careers, and their head-to-head series go in Zvonareva’s favour, 5-1.
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