Flavia Pennetta, seeded 5th in San Diego, played Samantha Stosur for the third time today, and for the third time, she won in straight sets. Pennetta, serving cleverly and playing a clean match, defeated the 2nd seed 6-4, 6-3. Stosur had only one break opportunity, on which she capitalized. Pennetta, on the other had, had thirteen break opportunities, and converted four of them. The Italian made 14 unforced errors, compared with Stosur's 37.
In the other early quarterfinal, Svetalana Kuznetsova found herself down 2-5 against Coco Vandeweghe in their first set, but she came back to win that set 7-5. She then easily won the second set 6-2. Vandeweghe, who has a formidable forehand, made a lot of backhand errors, and became more careless as the match went on. She concluded the match with 24 winners and 44 unforced errors.
In the third quarterfinal of the day, Daniela Hantuchova defeated Alisa Kleybanova 2-6, 6-4, 6-3. Hantuchova was 0-3 down in the second set, but came back with a better serve for the latter half of that set and the rest of the match. Kleybanova made the final set close, but Hantuchova prevailed.
4 comments:
THis was a little surprising to me. At some point earlier in the year, it seemed that Pennetta was playing up to par. Now she seems to be doing well and since RG Stosur hasn't been up to par. I didn't see the match so I don't know what the problem was but I am to gradually see Pennetta back on track even though I like both women.
I will be waiting to see the Kuznetsova-Vandeweghe match tonight after the 4th quarterfinal, on ESPN2. They are replaying it. Given how she has been playing this year, it will be great to see how Sveta comes back from 2-5 even though CoCo is very much lower-ranked.
CORRECTION: In my FIRST comment, it should read in the third line "seemed that Pennetta was NOT playing up to par."
Also seventh line should read "know what the problem was but I am HAPPY to"
A trip to the eye doctor should be occurring soon.
Pennetta has a historical pattern, and part of that pattern is peaking during the U.S. hard court season. So she is about where I expected her to be in August. Pennetta has a really good hard court game, and she can handle Stosur's spin and most of her high balls. Pennetta's serve was really on today, too.
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