Agnieszka Radwanska fell once again to her European rival at the Wimbledon Championships Monday. Svetlana Kuznetsova allowed her opponent very little fight on Court three at the All England Club where she pulled off the straight sets victory 6-2, 6-4 to reach the quarterfinals.
This was the third time they met at Wimbledon and the 18th overall with Kuznetsova as the series leader. The Russian took the last three matches from the world number ten and hoped to reach the quarterfinals for the first time in a decade. She had yet to drop a set during her three-game winning streak and with the long dominance of Radwanska, it only meant that her chances were just as good. The Pole struggled in her wins over Christina McHale and Timea Bacsinszky indicating that her strength would assuredly be tested once more.
She quickly found herself in a deep whole as Kuznetsova rallied to a three-game winning streak over Radwanska. She made it 4-0 before the Polish star found a way to bring her serve together in response. With the world number ten avoiding the shutout, Radwanska hoped to turn things around and recover from the gap that was created. Kuznetsova kept on her own agenda and reached 5-1 with her opponent serving to stay in the set by any means.
She held her own in the seventh but with the ball going back in the hands of the Russian, it would be up to her to hold the ground and stay alive. It was not meant to be as Kuznetsova dominated her serve on the world number ten to take the lead in the match after 32 minutes. Despite both having great first serve percentages, the main difference maker was that Radwanska’s reliance on her second serve was down with just 3 of 13 scored and 8 of 27 on the returns.
Needing an answer in the second set the ninth seed started with a service hold of Kuznetsova to get her side of the game improving. The Russian leveled up but saw a huge difference in the pace from the first set as Radwanska’s need for competition showed its face on court. Her biggest moment came in the third game that lasted 12 minutes before a winner could be determined. Radwanska went deep into deuce with Kuznetsova to somehow hold serve and set a pace for the Russian to answer back. She did with a much quicker game winner that tied them up after four.
The battle that Radwanska had going for her was a response far better than her opponent wished after speeding to victory so fast in the opening set. The Pole had her intentions down to force a third set with all her power. They kept close through eighth but the key break for Kuznetsova in the ninth gave her a huge chance to end things in straight sets against Radwanska. She served for it in the tenth putting all her efforts to get the job done and lock her spot in the quarterfinals after 1 hour and 29 minutes.
With a 15th win in the books for her against Radwanska, the high ranked Russian would try to make a similar showing facing the winner between Garbine Muguruza and world number one Angelique Kerber.
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