Lawntennisnews

Martina Hingis thrashed Italian eight-seed Francesca Schiavone, 6-0, 7-5, to advance into the quarterfinal round of the Internazionali d’ Italia in Rome. With the win, Hingis’ career head-to-head wins improved to 3-0 against Francesca Schiavone.

The match saw Hingis played aggressively despite the fall she had during the first game when she slipped. Schiavone, though playing aggressively, could not find any way to catch Hingis off guard, losing the first set. Hingis had always some answers to whatever strategy Schiavone used. At the end of first set, Hingis won the first set at 6-0.

In the second set, an error-prone Hingis not only failed to break Schiavone twice, but also got her serve broken by the Italian, losing the first three games of the set to Schiavone. Then Hingis, won the fourth game, by playing as aggressive as she did to narrow don the score at 1-3. Just as Hingis was playing her best, Schiavone, raised her game to win the fifth game and led at 4-1. Not to be outdone, though, Hingis went on to win the next three games, holding her serve, breaking Schiavone’s serve and again, holding her serve to even the the score at 4-4. Schiavone, never gave up and found a way to win the next game and lead the scoreboard at 5-4. Hingis’ strategy of putting pressure on Schiavone proved useful as she won the next three games, and won the sedond set, 7-5.

She will play Flavia Penetta, whom she defeated in the the first round of the Berlin Open last week.

This entry was posted on Friday, May 19th, 2006 at 7:43 am and is filed under Rome: Masters Series WTA. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.