Flavia Pennetta dumps Angelique Kerber to race into the grand finale – ASB Classic 2012
Angelique Kerber of Germany was outdone by Italian fourth seed, Flavia Pennetta, in straight sets 1-6, 2-6 during the ASB Classic tournament’s semi-final contest. Both contestants squared off on hard courts at Auckland,
New Zealand on Thursday and battled for almost an hour before the Italian sealed the place in the grand finale.
It was the third encounter between the two players; the head-to-head tally was tied at one match apiece and it was a crucial opportunity for both contestants to book a berth in the final of the year-opening championship.
Pennetta defeated the 32nd ranked Kerber in the quarter-final of the US Open Grand Slam tournament last year, avenging her defeat she suffered at the Collector Swedish Open in July 2011.
Kerber started the proceedings on Thursday with a successful serve game that was followed up by her opponent as well. Fourth seed Italian was provided an opportunity to break the opponent’s serve and she fully capitalized
on it; lead was further enhanced by holding on to the serve game. Score moved to 3-1 in Pennetta’s favour.
Kerber seemed to have buried under the burden of performing extremely well after winning the first set impressively against the top seed compatriot, Sabine Lisicki, earlier in the tournament. She crumbled under the pressure
to lose another serve game and then another that gifted the first set to the prolific Italian.
Fourth seed didn’t wasted time in stamping her authority in the second set as she smashed couple of aces to start the proceedings. She clinched the first game and so did Kerber on the other hand. Pennetta easily cruised past
her opponent with another game and managed to bag first break of the second set in the fourth game to ensure two games lead.
German tried her best to fight back into the game but was provided with no opportunity at all by her rival on the other end. Kerber held her serve to decrease the trail to 4-2 but she failed to register a desperately needed
break of serve.
At the score of 5-2, Pennetta smashed eye-startling winners in the last game to march into the grand finale in majestic manner. She faces the underdog Chinese, Jie Zheng that also has couple of upsets to her name that must
have boosted her confidence to a whole new level. It will be an enthralling battle to witness between the Italian powerhouse and Chinese underdog.
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