Yaroslava Shvedova stoops to Francesca Schiavone in round one – Toray Pan Pacific Open 2012
An epic encounter between the 35th ranked Kazakh star, Yaroslava Shvedova, and the 32-year-old Italian veteran, Francesca Schiavone, was witnessed at the hard courts of Tokyo. On Monday, both players locked horns for the third time in their professional careers and it was the former world number four, Schiavone, who clinched the triumph deep in three sets 4-6, 7-6(4), 6-4. She lost the opening set but fought until the end to steal the victory after a gruelling clash of two hours and 50 minutes.
The 25-year-old Kazakh failed to get off the mark against the former French Open Champion on the third occurrence as well. She started off emphatically well but wasn’t lucky enough to build on the cracking beginning. She was robbed off the second set tie-breaker victory by the wind and the early breakthrough for the Italian in the third phase proved a bit too much to recover in the end.
Both players traded breakpoints in the first four games of the match before registering a couple of serve holds. Scores were pushed to 4-4 at that stage. It was that moment when the Kazakh star sneaked a breakpoint and took a lead at the most critical stage of the set. She held her serve and took a leap towards the victory.
The second set witnessed an early breakpoint for the 25-year-old Kazakh but she couldn’t capitalize on that lead and squandered it in the sixth game. Both players traded four breakpoints in the set before the enforcement of tie-breaker. The momentum swirled from one player to another with each game but no one could manage to take the benefit.
Schiavone did well to take an early mini-break in the tie-breaker and enforced the deciding set into play. Shvedova was the favourite to win the battle considering her emphatic run of form this year but she failed to hold serve in the third game and went down to a trail of 1-3. She couldn’t test her opponent for the equalizer in the remaining portion of the play and lost the encounter.
Francesca Schiavone battles the eighth seed Aussie star, Samantha Stosur, in round two.
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