Yaroslava Shvedova stuns Alexandra Panova in the opening round – Family Circle Cup 2012
Opening round of the Family Circle Cup in Charleston witnessed a major upset on Tuesday when the 150th ranked Kazakh, Yaroslava Shvedova, stunned the 82nd ranked Russian, Alexandra Panova, in straight sets
6-0, 6-4.
The Kazakh qualifier took an hour and 21 minutes to register her second head-to-head triumph over the Russian; disabling Panova to have the revenge of the earlier loss. Panova is yet to open her account against the Kazakh in her
professional tennis career.
Panova, 23-years-old, commenced the match in dismal fashion; couldn’t hold her serve once throughout the opening set and failed to pressurize her opponent as well. It was all about the Kazakh who was ruling the show and allowing
no opportunity whatsoever to her opponent to take hold of the proceedings.
The first set witnessed 43 points played; Shvedova won 29 of them despite accumulating a couple of double-faults on her way. She converted all nine of her first serve points and was able to take 50 percent benefit of her second
serves as well.
No opportunity was created by the Russian to break her opponent’s serve. She managed to save a couple of breakpoints but wasn’t able to hold on to her serve. It was an embarrassing first set display from the Russian who usually
dominates the proceedings against the inferior ranked players.
Panova had an opportunity to wipe off her first set stain with a world class performance in the second set. She started the set with a serve hold but went down a break in the third game. She managed to level the scores at 3-3 with
a successful breakthrough. However, the following three games also witnessed a swap of breakpoints with Shvedova winning a couple of them.
The Russian had to break serve in the 10th game to keep the match alive but she failed to convert the most critical breakpoint; her opponent survived the scare and held her serve to win the match. It was one of the major
upset of the day.
Shvedova will square-off against the 12th seed Belgian, Yanina Wickmayer, in the second round of the tournament.
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