Radwanska to Face Sharapova in Stuttgart Quarters

April 24, 2014 | By New York Tennis Magazine Staff
Photo credit: Adam Wolfthal

Just 48 hours removed from her nail-biting victory over Lucie Safarova, defending champion Maria Sharapova pushed her way into the quarterfinals of the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix in Stuttgart, Germany with a 6-4, 6-3 victory over her countrywoman Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova.

Despite having her serve broken in the first game and trailing 2-0 in the first set, Sharapova quickly turned on another gear and won 11 of the next 13 games, building herself a comfortable lead. After the slow start to the match, Sharapova finished extremely storm, posting 22 winners to just 21 unforced errors leaving her with a positive differential.

Sharapova now moves on to the quarterfinals where she will meet the top-seeded Agnieszka Radwanska who defeated Roberta Vinci fairly easily in a 6-3,6-2 victory that tied her for the most wins on the WTA tour so far this year.

The match was tight early, as Radwanska and Vinci were all squared up at 2-2 in the first set. Radwanska reeled off the next three games, even facing game points in two of those games. After the Polish native captured the first set, she ran away from the Italian Vinci, jumping out to a 4-0 lead in the second set and never looking back.

Radwanska would go on to win the match 6-3, 6-2 to set up the quarterfinal showdown with Sharapova.

“Today was a pretty good match,” said Radwanska. “I was playing very aggressively, serving not bad and moving okay on the surface. I think straight sets against someone who is playing very well on clay is a very good score. We’ll see in the other matches, but of course, here there are no easy opponents.”

In one of the better stories in the tennis world thus far this year, Alisa Kleybanova moved onto the quarterfinals by beating Petra Kvitova 6-2, 7-6(3). It was Kleybanova’s first victory over a top 10 opponent since her most important victory, beating Hodgkin’s lymphoma which forced her to miss time from May 2011 to March 2012.

After securing the first set 6-2, the Russian faced a 5-3 hole in the second set, but battled back and won the set in a tiebreak 7-6(3). It was Kleybanova’s first Top 10 victory since back in 2011, and she moves onto the quarterfinals in Germany.

 


New York Tennis Magazine Staff
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