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Belgium's Kim Clijsters - Source: Reuters -
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Nadia Petrova proved she had no room for sentiment, dumping crowd favourite Kim Clijsters out of the Australian Open third round on Friday with a 6-0 6-1 thrashing in just 52 minutes.
The 19th-seeded Russian had never beaten Clijsters, who is still in the early stages of her return from retirement, in their four previous encounters.
Petrova wasted little time in stamping her mark on the match, keeping Clijsters off balance with powerful ground strokes and a clinical service game that stunned the Hisense Arena crowd into silence.
The Belgian, who won the US Open last year and the Brisbane International title shortly before the Australian Open began, won just five points in the first set and committed 17 unforced errors.
If she hoped the break into the second set would give her the time she needed to settle and begin a fight back, the Russian had different ideas, winning the first game of the set to love and then giving up just two points on Clijsters' serve in the next.
Clijsters appeared to have found some of her touch again when she held a break point, but Petrova refused to allow her to capitalise.
The Belgian had been heading for a rare 6-0 6-0 defeat until the 10th game of the match when she finally held her serve.
Clijsters is, strangely enough, the last woman to record a 6-0 6-0 whitewash at Melbourne Park against Russia's Vasilisa Bardina in the first round 2007.
Petrova broke serve again and while Clijsters was able to stave
off two match points when the Russian was serving for victory, she
was unable to stop her opponent's irrepressible momentum.
