Tennis: Pavlyuchenkova, Zvonareva Moves to Baku Quarterfinals

Tennis Now

On Thursday, only three seeds remain in the draw for the Baku Cup quarterfinals.

First seed Vera Zvonareva was interrupted for a double bagel when Slovakian Kristina Kucova retired at 6-0, 3-0, with a left leg injury.

Despite the injury, the World No. 187 was able to push the top three player to two breaks of serve and threatened it a total of six time, but Zvonareva had a strong first serve and return game.

Second seed Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova took the win from compatriot Elena Bovina 6-4, 6-0. 

World No. 13 Pavlyuchenkova managed to make several errors on her serve hitting seven double-faults and only 35 percent effective with her second serve but was able to break Bovina's serve on six of nine attempts.

Bovina started strong by breaking the seeded player at the start of the first set, but the qualifier was not able to hold.

In an impressive run, Kateryna Bondarenko upset fourth-seeded Ekaterina Makarova of Russia 6-1, 6-4 in 67 minutes. 

This is a vast improvement for the Ukranian player who had been on a losing streak since the beginning of the year until making it to Wimbledon's third round. Since then, she has been in the quarterfinals in Bastad and the semifinals of Bad Gastien.

She was able to take advantage by converting all of her break point opportunities against the favored Russian.

World No. 93 Anna Tatishvili, Georgia native, defeated Tatia Mikadze 7-6 (4), 6-3.

The first half of the quarterfinalis will include No. 7 seeded Russian Ksenia Pervak, French World No. 112 Aravane Rezai, Kazakh World No. 162 Galina Voskoboeva and Ukrainian World No. 165 Mariya Koryttseva, who played yesterday.

Tennis Now