TENNIS Roland Garros – Swede Johanna Larsson deservedly upset the 12th seed and Indian Wells champion Flavia Pennetta in a gruelling three setter ended 5-7 6-4 6-2. Giulio Gasparin
Interviews, Results, OOP, Draws from the Roland Garros
Swede Johanna Larsson deservedly upset the 12th seed and Indian Wells champion Flavia Pennetta in a gruelling three setter ended 5-7 6-4 6-2.
Larsson was the most incisive player in the first set, but failed to convert her best chances. It all came to a peak when she was broken from 30-0 up serving for the set on 5-4.
Pennetta found the first solid hold on the set to force the Swede to serve to stay in the set, but that proved to add up too much pressure on her, as she was broken to hand the set.
Pennetta then took full control of the match and it looked as if the 12th seed was going to pick up a comfortable win.
On 3-0 up for the Italian, Larsson managed to regroup herself and her tennis came back thunderously.
The Swede slowly started to improve the quality of her shots and more and more often she was taking the long rallies, in which Pennetta spent a lot of energy chasing big shots left to right.
Larsson completed the comeback and then broke the Italian in a very intense game, where Pennetta saved several break points with stunning backhands, but it was not enough.
The Australian Open quarter-finalist fought back to take the break, but her movements suddenly looked hampered, perhaps by the thigh injury that occurred ahead of the Parisian slam.
Larsson found one another break, but this time she did not let the emotions prevent her from being clutch and with a good service game, she captured the second set 6-4.
The leak of games from Pennetta did not stop after the break between sets and in less than 10 minutes she found herself down of two breaks.
From 4-4 in the second set, to 0-3 down in the third, the Italian won as much as 4 points, missing too many shots, but most of all being unable to stop the formidable forehand of the Swede.
The moment started to catch up on Larsson once again in the fourth game, as she hit three double faults –the only ones of her match-, but the legs of Pennetta clearly did not allow her to take advantage of any of the break points she had.
The last few games went on following the service pattern without any big emotion, apart from tears rapidly appearing after another bad miss by the Italian in the second point of the last game.
World number 93 Larsson conquered by this the first third round of a slam in her career, a fully deserved result, especially given the quality of tennis that she produced in the past two matches.
Pennetta, on the other hand, showed all her limits on the slow red clay: her shots are not heavy enough to break down her opponents, whilst her age does not allow to defend as much and her body run out of gas too soon.
Larsson will face Canadian rising star Eugenie Bouchard to try and get to the last 16.
