Yvonne Meusburger, Ksenia Pervak advance into the 2nd round –NURNBERGER Gastein Ladies 2011
Austrian tennis pro Yvonne Meusburger battled past Alona Bondarenko of Ukraine 6-3, 7-6 (6) on Tuesday to book a second round birth at the 2011 NURNBERGER Gastein Ladies in Bad Gastein, Hungary.
Meusburger took the opening set quite comfortably. She faced a tougher challenge in the second set as the set went into a tie-breaker. Showing remarkable composure and mental strength, she pocketed the tie-breaker 8-6 to seal the
match that lasted for one hour and 44 minutes.
The match was played on an extremely competitive note. Un-seeded at the Women’s Tennis Association tournament, Meusburger started off very brightly as she broke her opponent at regular intervals. Bondarenko was also up for the
challenge as she broke back consistently. Leading at 4-3, Meusburger struck a lovely backhand winner down the line to earn a vital 5-3 lead, serving for the match. Holding on to her next service game with four straight points, she took the set score lead 1-0.
The second set also followed a pretty similar pattern with both players fighting hard for every available point. After several serve breaks were exchanged by the contestants, the set moved into a tie-breaker to decide the fate
of the match. Leading 6-3 in the tie-breaker, Bondarenko had a great opportunity to force the match into the final set. However she was wasteful on her serve as he let her opponent take the set and complete her straight sets victory.
The 27-year-old Meusburger was delighted at her victory as she also avenged her defeat to Bondarenko in 2006. With a decent win to loss record in the year 2011, the Austrian will be hoping to lift her first ever WTA trophy here
at the red clay courts of Hungary. She served with control and accuracy throughout the match hitting 76 per cent first serves. If she continued her incredible form in her upcoming matches at the WTA tournament, she could make it all the way to final stages.
In another match number eight seed Ksenia Pervak of Russian thrashed out French woman Alize Cornet 7-6(3), 6-2 to make it to the second round.
Pervak played very aggressively and created certain break chances with strong ground strokes. Her First serve conversion was impressive and she defended with great composure. Cornet made a good start to the match as she took the
opener into a tie-breaker. However in the second set, she lost the track completely and suffered three serve breaks to let Pervak advance into the next round. Pervak’s opponent in the second round play will be qualifier Nastja Kolar, who eased past Alla Kudryavtseva
6-1, 6-1.
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