Agnieszka Radwanska knocks out Flavia Pennetta in semi-final – China Open 2011
Polish World No. 12, Agnieszka Radwanska squared off against Flavia Pennetta of Italy to secure a berth in the final of China Open on October 8th in Beijing. Pennetta flabbergasted the world in her quarterfinal match
with the top seed and world number one, Caroline Wozniaki, conquering her in three sets after a fierce battle.
Pennetta had played a very long and tiring match against the top seed one day before and looked a bit out of form in her match against the Pole. Fatigue was obvious in her footwork as she was not even reaching out for slightly
difficult balls across the court. Radwanska, on the other hand, was fresh as she had only played set and a half before her opponent, Ana Ivanovic, retired from the match due to a thigh-injury. Pennetta could only manage to last for an hour and twenty-three
minutes before he was knocked out in straight-sets with a score of 6-2, 6-4.
Pennetta had a chance to level the head-to-head score of with Radwanska as she trailed by 1-2 but the situation wasn’t right for World No. 26 as she was pushed to her limits in her quarterfinal match. But her performance throughout
the tournament is the one to remember her for lifetime. Her best moment of the tournament was when she defeated the World No. 1 to enter into the semi-finals.
Radwanska was all fired up to make it to the final of the event as she wanted to clinch the eighth title of her career. She had an upper hand in the match as she was relatively fresh. Radwanska capitalized on this shortcoming of
Pennetta and ruled him out of the tournament in an exciting fashion. She won the first set with massive 60% points winning rate and broke her opponent’s serve three times to take the set 6-2.
The Italian star did manage to compose her and put up a better fight in the second-set but was not good enough to extend the match to the final set. Radwanska secured 53% of the total points in the set and broke Pennetta’s serve
twice to clinch the place in the title match. She will now face ninth seeded Andrea Petkovic for the title on Sunday.
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