Tag: Kuznetsova

Svetlana Kuznetsova has been defeated by Angelique Kerber of Germany in the third round of Mutua Madrid Open. Kerber won the match in three sets by 3-6, 6-4, 7-5.

It took Kerber more than a couple of hours to register her second victory over Kuznetsova in 3 matches.

In the post match interview, Kerber said, “In the first set, Svetlana was playing great tennis and it was hard to compete against her. I was really under pressure when the second set began. I decided to take it game by game and tried not to lose my focus.”

“I am happy that I managed to win today, but, I certainly need to start better in my next match. You can’t always recover after losing the first set.”

In the first set, both the players had a steady start. The first five games went with the serve and Kuznetsova was leading by 3-2 when the 5^th game ended.

Kuznetsova broke Kerber’s serve in the 6^th game and then, enhanced her lead to 5-2 with a serve hold in the next game.

The Russian player just needed to win her next service game to seal the set and she had no difficulty in doing that. She won the opener by 6-3 and put her opponent under tremendous pressure.

In the second set, Kerber again had a poor start. She dropped her serve in the very first game, but, after that, she lifted the standard of her game considerably and broke Kuznetsova’s serve thrice to win the set by 6-4.

In the third and final set, Kerber was looking confident right from the start. She got a breakthrough in the 2^nd game to get ahead by 2-0. However, she lost the advantage soon as she was broken back in the very next game. Kuznetsova held her serve in the 4^th game to level the scores.

The next seven games went with the serve and the score was 6-5 in the favour of Kerber at the end of the 11^th game.

The German player broke Kuznetsova’s serve again in the 12^th game and that was the end of the match.

In the next round, Kerber will lock horns with Ana Ivanovic of Serbia.

Svetlana Kuznetsova’s countrywoman, Nadia Petrova, has defeated Dinah Pfizenmaier of Germany in the first round of Porsche Tennis Grand Prix 2013. Petrova won the match in straight sets by 7-6(2), 6-4. It took the Russian player 103 minutes to get better of her German opponent.

Petrova who is currently at no. 11 in the official rankings of WTA hadn’t faced Pfizenmaier before. So, she didn’t have much idea about her style of play and probably, because of that, she looked a bit tentative in the opening set. But, after having a bit of look at the style of her opponent, she adjusted accordingly and won the second set easily to move into the final 16.

In the post match interview, Petrova said, “In the first set, she was fantastic on her serve and it was hard to get a breakthrough. I didn’t lose my shape in the tie breaker and managed to get the first set in the bag.”

“Then, in the second set, she got just a little bit nervous and that allowed me to take the set away from her.”

“I think Dinah is a fine, young player and she will turn out to be a big superstar one day.”

It was certainly not a perfect performance by Petrova. She got a total of 7 break chances in the match and she wasted 5 of them. She could convert only a couple of them in the second set.

However, one thing that Petrova did well in the match was that she didn’t serve even one double fault. She also didn’t commit too many unforced errors in the match unlike her 21 years old opponent.

In the pre quarter final round, Petrova will lock horns with the Serbian superstar Ana Ivanovic.

Svetlana Kuznetsova will play against her countrywoman Ekaterina Makarova in the second round of the Sony Open tomorrow.

Kuznetsova made her way into the second round with a straight set victory over Lourdes Dominguez Lino of Spain. Kuznetsova defeated Lino by 6-3, 6-3.

On the other hand, Makarova got a bye in the first round. So, tomorrow’s match will be her first match in the tournament.

Kuznetsova is a very popular player in USA. The first Grand Slam tournament that she had won was the US Open in 2004.

The hard courts suit Kuznetsova’s style of play. She is a power hitter and there are very few players in the world who hit the ball as hard as her. Her record on hard courts has been astonishing.

In the ongoing season, Kuznetsova’s performance has been average. She hasn’t played outstandingly, but, she hasn’t played poorly either.

She has reached the quarterfinals of a couple of tournaments in this season. The last tournament in which she had participated was the BNP Paribas Open. She was defeated in the third round of that tournament by Marion Bartoli of France.

Makarova has also not done anything extraordinary in this season. She hasn’t looked at her peak in most of the matches. As far as style of play is concerned, she is also a decent hard court player. She plays superb ground strokes and is generally very good on her serve as well.

Makarova is currently higher in world rankings than Kuznetsova. She is at no. 20, while, Kuznetsova is at no. 45.

This will be the third encounter between these two Russian players. Both of them have won one each so far. The last match played between these two players was three years back in 2010.