Dominika Cibulkova slays Yuliya Beygelzimer to reach the semi-final – Barcelona Ladies Open 2012
Slovak tennis ace, Dominika Cibulkova, escaped a scare against the 28-year-old Ukrainian starlet, Yuliya Beygelzimer, in the quarter-final clash of the Barcelona Ladies Open on Friday. She dropped the first set but registered successive
bagels to book a spot in the last four of the tournament. Final scores were 3-6, 6-0, 6-0 for the third seed Slovak who is the hot favourite player to win the tournament after early departure of top two seeds.
It was the maiden contest between the two players that lasted for an hour and 52 minutes. The Ukrainian has stunned everyone with her performance and was on course to register another upset but a timely comeback from the third
seed Slovak stopped her from accomplishing that milestone.
The Slovak went two games down early in the opening set. She recovered well to win a breakthrough in the sixth game and level the scores at 3-3 but her opponent immediately reclaimed the lead in the following game. It was not a
kind of start the 17th ranked Slovak had though off before the start of the match. Her serve was broken for the third time in the match during the ninth game that gave a set lead to her competitor.
However, a remarkable turnaround in the proceedings was witnessed at the clay courts of Barcelona. The 204th ranked Ukrainian who breezed past her opponent in the opening set failed to get her timing right on multiple
occurrences.
She couldn’t put any sort of pressure on her rival and it seemed like she had forgotten how to place the winning shot in a rally. Three breakpoints on the trot for the Slovak gave her an opportunity to register a bagel. She was
forced to work hard in the last game but her willpower to spare nothing at all for the Ukrainian did the trick.
Stage was set for a final set clash but considering a blistering outbreak from the Slovak in the second set, it was obvious that she will go all out on the Ukrainian who was already under a lot of pressure. The Slovak started the
last battle in the same fashion; breaking her rival’s serve in the opening game and taking 2-0 lead upfront. From then, she didn’t look back and hammered the Ukrainian to all corners of the court; back-to-back bagels require a lot of courage and stamina especially
when someone has lost the opening set.
Cibulkova will square off against the Romanian beauty queen, Sorana Cirstea, in the semi-final.
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