Venus Williams answered a tough challenge from Eugenie Bouchard today in the Tokyo quarterfinals, but emerged the winner, 6-3, 6-7, 6-3. Williams beat Mona Barthel in the opening round, and easily got past a visibly ailing Victoria Azarenka in the second. Before knocking out Bouchard, Williams defeated Simona Halep 4-6, 7-5, 6-3.
Next for Williams is Petra Kvitova, who has also had a very good week in Tokyo, beating Belinda Bencic in the second round (Bencic got her first tour win, over Daria Gavrilova, in the opening round), Madison Keys in the third round, and Svetlana Kuznetsova in the quarterfinals.
In the other semifinal match, Caroline Wozniacki will play Angenique Kerber. In Tokyo, everything old is new again!
Kerber, by the way, reached the semifinals today by knocking out 2012 runner-up (and 2011 champion) Agnieszka Radwanska.
In Ningbo, top seed (and Tashkent champion) Bojana Jovanovski reached the semifinals with a win over Johanna Larsson. She is joined there by Guangzhou champion Zhang Shuai, who defeated Yvonne Meusburger 6-3, 6-0.
7 comments:
Congrats to Venus. The match was good, Bouchard has game!
I'm always wary of predicting future success, but Bouchard really has a lot going on for her.
Venus and Petra--both physically challenged, but in different ways. I hope they're both in top form for the match.
Bouchard has patience and the ability to forget the last point, qualities that are in short supply these days. She is waay ahead of the curve for her age. Go Eugenie!!
She's also a really witty young woman. If she and Laura both "make it," WTÅ press conferences will be wonderful events.
Petra has made two finals in a row. She was sick and lost to Simona. She beat Venus yesterday in a fantastic match that saw both play every point all out. Petra proved to be a little bit tougher and raised her game steadily from start to finish. She had to, because Venus had both her serve and groundies (best ever) working for her. Venus was the first to blink in the third set tiebreaker, and Petra ran away with it. She must have hit 25 winners in that last set. Low unforced error count from both, impressive especially given the windy conditions. For me, the match of the year on the WTA Tour.
Venus hit a 129.8 mph serve. It's a new record. Petra plays Kerber in the final.
That was a great match. I was hoping it would be, and it was so great to see both of them hitting that way. That third set!
Look at everyone's who's "back"--Venus, Petra, Angelique. Nice.
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