Svetlana Kuznetsova’s countrywoman, Maria Kirilenko, has been knocked out of the Wimbledon Championships 2013. She suffered a straight set defeat against the British youngster Laura Robson in the opening round yesterday. Robson won the match by 6-3, 6-4.
It was a superb all round performance by Robson. She entered the match in an attacking mood and just took the match away from Kirilenko.
Kirilenko’s world ranking is much higher than that of Robson and she was not supposed to struggle against the British player. But, that didn’t happen. Kirilenko wasn’t even close to her best. She never managed to get into a good rhythm.
In the post match interview, Robson said, “This was the first time I was playing against Maria and I was nervous. Fortunately, I got a good start and that calmed me down. I lost my concentration towards the end of the second set, but, I bounced back in time and managed to finish it off.”
In the first set, the first 7 games went with the serve and at the end of the 7th game; the score was 4-3 in the favour of Kirilenko. The Russian player managed to sneak a breakthrough in the 8th game and then, by serving out the next game, she clinched the opener by 6-3.
In the second set, there were no breakthroughs in the first couple of games and the scorecard was showing 1-1 when the 2nd game got over. After that, Robson went berserk for a while. She won the next 3 games consecutively with the help of two breakthroughs and took a lead of 4-1.
Kirilenko pulled things back a little bit with a serve break in the 6th game and a serve hold in the 7th game. But, that was too little, too late. Robson easily won her next two service games and finished off the proceedings.
In the next round, Robson will take on Mariana Duque of Colombia.