Victoria Azarenka halts Marion Bartoli in quarterfinal – Toray Pan Pacific Open 2011
Third seeded Victoria Azarenka puts a full stop to ninth seeded Marion Bartoli’s agame in the quarterfinal of the Toray Pan pacific Open 2011. On the 29th of September the players clashed racquets on the hard courts
of the Ariake Colosseum, Tokyo, Japan. After one hour and twenty three minutes the fourth seeded Belarusian outmanoeuvred the Frenchwomen in straight sets of 7-5, 6-0.
The first round of the match was initiated by Bartoli, who is currently ranked at world number ten and she duelled a deuce to finally hold her serve in the first game. The first to break was Bartoli and as she capitalized on an
early break, she led the score board with a 2-0.
However, Azarenka was not going to let the Frenchwomen gain one up and broke back immediately in the next game and as she held serve in the fourth game the scoreboard was brought to even terms at 2-2. Azarenka then took a mini
lead of 3-2 in the fifth game by again breaking Bartoli.
During the following three games, the two players held serve for the initial two games and by breaking Azarenka, Bartoli was quick to again bring the scoreboard to a tie at 4-4 and then at 5-5 as the players held serve in the tenth
game.
At such a pivotal stage in the game, the crowd expected the set to move into a tiebreaker, however, that not how the events turned out, instead, during the last two games Azarenka pushed a notch higher and broke Bartoli for the
last time in the eleventh game and by holding serve in the twelfth bagged a 7-5 victory of the opening set.
Azarenka, the number third seed at the Premier-level tournament, asserted her dominance early, stealing the first service game off of her opponent. She then in the second game held her serve to score a 2-0 mini lead. She went on
to further increase the gap to 3-0 by holding serve in the third game. On the contrary, Bartoli was unable to pick up even for a short period, and was unable to close the ever increasing gap.
Winning six games in a row, Azarenka conquered a flawless bagel set victory against the Frenchwomen, who was unable to win a single game. She now moves on ahead to play either Kaia Kanepi or Agnieszka Radwanska in the semi-final
of the event.
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