Eva Birnerova stuns Alexandra Cadantu to reach the last four – Tashkent Open 2012
World number 133, Eva Birnerova, adds one more name to the series of recent upsets she has pulled up in the Tashkent Open. She toppled the 85th ranked Romanian, Alexandra Cadantu, in the quarter-final of the tournament;
winning the match in three sets 6-3, 4-6, 6-2.
Birnerova was not the only underdog who dispatched the seeded player of the competition. Irina Camelia-Begu also plonked the Kazakh eighth seed; making her way into the semi-finals of the tournament. So, it was a good day for the
inferior ranked players especially for the Czech starlet who dismissed the fifth seed Cadantu.
The start to the match was pretty traditional. Both players bagged the opening serve holds with the least of resistance but the second serve game for the Romanian fifth seed went terribly wrong as she committed a hat-trick of unforced
errors gifting the breakthrough to her rival. She went down to a trail of 1-4 soon after the third successive serve hold from the Czech.
A swap of breakpoints helped the Czech professional to inch a step closer to the first set victory. She was tested to her limits in the ninth game but did well to hang on and steal the first set away. Trailing a set down, Cadantu
commenced the second set with a serve hold. Both players swapped breakpoints to push the scores at 2-2.
Cadantu fired in a serve hold to love and that was followed up with a series of breakpoint stretching to the last game of the second set. The set kept on swinging from one player to another with each breakpoint but in the end it
was the mere serve hold from the 22-year-old Romanian that enforced the final set into play.
First game of the final set lasted almost 12 minutes but ended in despair for the Romanian fifth seed. She dropped a breakpoint and went down to a trail of 0-2. Soon, the lead was extended to 4-1 with the help of another breakpoint.
The 28-year-old Czech didn’t make any mistake in consolidating the double breakthrough lead and smashed in a commanding serve hold to make it 5-1 at the hard courts of Uzbekistan.
Cadantu failed to handle the onslaught and surrendered earlier than expected. She lost the final set with a fair margin and allowed her opponent to book a berth in the last four where she faces the 16-year-old Croatian qualifier,
Donna Vekic.
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