Vesnina/Paes stun Huber/Mirnyi to reach semis – French Open 2012
Fifth seeds, Russia’s Elena Vesnina and India’s Leander Paes, bounced back to upset the American-Belarusian duo, Liezel Huber and Max Mirnyi, in a three set thriller at the Roland Garros 2012 on Tuesday. They jolted down a 4-6, 7-5, 10-5 victory against the top seeds to power into the semi-finals at this second of the four Grand Slam events taking place from 22nd May to 10th June in Paris.
The Russian-Indian junction displayed superb tennis to overpower Huber and Mirnyi in their first encounter. After earning this fame in almost one and a half hour-long venture, they booked a place in the final four at this prestigious clay court event.
The highest ranked mixed doubles team of the tournament, Huber and Mirnyi made a strong entry at the court number two. They failed to block the lone breakpoint they faced but capitalised on two out of three break chances, eventually pulling out the opener with a 6-4 score line in 35 minutes.
Vesnina and Paes re-structured their strategy in the follow-up set and despite exchanging a serve break, they dominated a set. They got the breakthrough after cashing in another break chance near the end and clicked the equaliser by winning seven games to five.
The match could have gone in any direction in the final set or the super tie-breaker and the team who got the upper hand were the lower seeds. The Russian-Indian tandem dominated in it and consequently carved out the decider with a 10-5 success.
Summing up the winning seeds’ performance, Vesnina and Paes clobbered a better first serve share of 70 per cent as compared to their rivals’ 65 per cent and brilliantly marked 34 out of 50 points on it. They spilled more errors but sealed the deal with 69 points.
Next up for the fifth seeds is the Polish-Mexican tandem of Klaudia Jans-Ignacik and Santiago Gonzalez. Jans-Ignacik and Gonzalez rallied past the South African-Australian collaboration, Natalie Grandin and Paul Hanley, in three sets to set up this encounter.
The Kazakh-Italian duo, Galina Voskoboeva and Daniele Bracciali, will join Vesnina and Paes in the semi-finals. They crushed the Spanish-Austrian team, Nuria Llagostera Vives and Oliver Marach, with a breadstick to progress at this event.
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