12 December 2005

DUBAI — Olga Panova of Russia swept aside a strong opposition from Katerina Avdiyenko of Ukraine before scraping to a 5-7, 6-4, 7-6 win in the second round qualifier of the seventh Al Habtoor Tennis Challenge at the Habtoor Resort and Spa tennis courts yesterday.

Panova, who beat Briton Tara Wigan in the first round on Saturday, faced a tougher opposition from Avdiyenko yesterday. The Russian ranked 408 on the women’s circuit, looked on helplessly as her opponent, 100 points below her in the rankings, dictated the pace in the opening set.

Panova, however, came more into the picture in the next set as she put her opponent under tremendous pressure with some great shots. It came as no wonder as she took the set 6-4 to level the scores 1-1.

But Avdiyenko also grew in strength in the deciding set and she too gave the Russian a lot to worry about. After a prolonged battle Panova scraped through on tie-break 7-6 to win the match. Panova will now meet Napaporn Tongsalee of Thailand in the quarter-finals today.

Nadejda Ostrovskaya of Belarus was also given a scare by Calorine Schneider of Germany before winning in three sets. Ostrovskaya went down 2-6 in the opening set but recovered to take the next two sets 7-5, 6-2 to win the match.

Top seed Tongsalee of Thailand on the other hand had things relatively easy as she defeated Punam Reddy of India 6-3, 6-3 for a quarter-final berth.

[ BACK ]