Thursday 13 October 2011

Hantuchova fightback sets up Quarter with Kvitova in Linz

Daniela Hantuchova staged a superb fightback from 7-5 3-0 down to beat Ksenia Pervak, 5-7 6-3 6-4. Pervak looked to be on the way to the biggest win of her career but she let slip her lead to allow the more experienced Hantuchova eventually prevail after she herself wasted several leads in a see-saw swinging third set. She will play Petra Kvitova in the most exciting of the quarter-finals on paper to play tomorrow. Kvitova breezed past Patricia Mayr-Achleitner, 6-2 6-3. The Eurosport commentator, Simon Reed was quite critical of her ballbashing and in truth, she was going for it a lot and making quite a few errors; however this is Kvitova's game and I actually thought she was showing some positive tactics today with the use of the slice shot and attempts at trying to mix up her game with many net approaches. Kvitova has served superbly in her first two matches - today she hit 7 aces, no double faults and most impressively, converted 73% of her second serve points.

In other matches, Anne Keothavong played an excellent first set against Jelena Jankovic before letting the errors mount in a 6-3 2-6 1-6 loss. Dominika Cibulkova also progressed despite letting a 5-1 lead in the first set disappear against the Italian, Sara Errani. Eventually, she managed to get a grip and wrap the match up, 6-7 6-3 6-1!!! Lucie Safarova completed a routine victory over Lisicki's conqueror, Alberta Brianti and will now face the in-form Sorana Cirstea in the quarter-finals.

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