Vinci/Bracciali stuns Hlavackova/Qureshi to reach the semis- Australian Open 2012
Italian tandem of Roberta Vinci and Daniele Bracciali shocked the seventh seeds, Andrea Hlavackova of Czech Republic and Aisam-Ul-Haq Qureshi of Pakistan, with a breadstick at the Australian Open 2012 on Wednesday. They registered a 6-1, 7-5 victory over their rivals to book a spot in the final four at this Grand Slam event.
Italians roared into the semi-finals after crushing their seeded opponents in straight sets at the Melbourne Park. After earning success in an hour-long duel, Vinci and Bracciali assertively advanced at this major hard court tournament and inched closer to the $135,500 prize money.
The Italian team flashed into the Margaret Court Arena and quickly swiped in entire serves after warding off both breakpoints they faced. On the other hand they cashed in all three break chances and pocked a breadstick in 19 minutes. Vinci and Bracciali formulated a slightly higher first serve share of 63 percent as compared to their foes’ 59 percent and manifested a perfect win on it.
Seventh seeds showed some resistance in the second set as they cashed in the only break opportunity to prevail. However, they lost their edge after few games and eventually levelled the scores. Adding further to their misery, Hlavackova and Qureshi lost their serve again in the end and ultimately suffered a 5-7 loss.
Summing up performance by the winning combination of Vinci and Bracciali, they produced a better first serve share and registered spectacular 26 out of 31 points on it. The Italians spilled more unforced errors but made up for it by smashing 31 winners.
The unseeded Italians will next face the winner of the match between fourth seeded duo, Lisa Raymond and Rohan Bopanna, and the fifth seeds, Elena Vesnina and Leander Paes.
Sixth seeded Indian junction of Sania Mirza and Mahesh Bhupathi will join the Italians in the final four. They fended off early resistance by the American-British tandem of Liezel Huber and Colin Fleming to register a 7-6(5), 6-2 victory.
The Indians exchanged three breaks of serve to drag the opening set to a tie-breaker where they dominated and subsequently clinched the set with a 7-6(5) score line.
In the following set, Mirza and Bhupathi swiped in entire serves without facing any breakpoint and capitalised on two out of three break chances to seal the deal with a 6-2 success in 31 minutes.
Next up for the sixth seeded tandem is the winner of the match between the wild card entrants, Jarmila Gajdosova and Bruno Soares, and the eighth seeds, Bethanie Mattek-Sands and Horia Tecau.
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