Yanina Wickmayer upsets Svetlana Kuznetsova in the third round – Wimbledon Championships 2011
Nineteenth seeded Belgian Yanina Wickmayer dumped twelfth seeded Russian Svetlana Kuznetsova in a three set match at Wimbledon Championships 2011, one of the four Grand Slam event held in London, England. She made an epic comeback
to register a 4-6, 6-3, 6-4 victory over the 25-year-old Russian to advance into the fourth round on Friday.
21-year-old Belgian won for the first time against the Russian after winning this match at All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club. She displayed tremendous skills to lower the trail in the head-to-head series by 1-2 against Kuznetsova.
Kuznetsova entered SW19 in full confidence and superbly held her first serve of the opening set. She then went on to hold her following serves and got the coveted break in the sixth game to extend the lead by 4-2. Despite losing
concentration in the ninth game as she lost her serves due to silly errors, Kuznetsova quickly covered it up by breaking Belgian’s serve in the very next game to clinch the opener with a 6-4 win.
Wickmayer raised the bar of her game in the second set as she held tightly on her entire serves after saving two breakpoints faced. She then penetrated through the higher seed’s defences to earn the craving breaks twice. The Belgian
converted two out of five breakpoint chances to her advantage to bag the equaliser with a 6-3 score line in forty-one minutes.
The Lier native, Wickmayer kept momentum rolling into the final set as she plucked entire serves through sharp backhand slices from her box of tricks. She faced no difficulty facing the Russian’s serves and converted the only breakpoint
opportunity to her advantage to seal the decider with a 6-4 victory in forty-four minutes.
Overall, the Belgian clobbered a slightly lower first serve share of 66 percent as opposed to Kuznetsova’s 68 percent but earned a magnificent 72 percent win on it. Regardless of committing twenty unforced errors and six double
faults, she covered it up by hammering thirty-two winners.
Wickmayer has an awesome run of form this season. She reached the final at Auckland, the first tournament she entered. The Belgian then reached semi-final at Indian Wells and made quarter-final berths at Paris, Charleston, Brussels
and s-Hertogenbosch before arriving at London.
Up next for Wickmayer is eight seeded Czech, Petra Kvitova who downed twenty-nine seeded Italian Roberta Vinci in straight sets to reach this spot.
The Czech hammered thirty-seven winners, saved the only breakpoint faced and converted three out of five breakpoint opportunities to her advantage to seal the deal with a 6-3, 6-3 score line.
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