Irina Camelia-Begu stuns Urszula Radwanska and reaches the final – Tashkent Open 2012
World number 87, Irina Camelia-Begu, trashed a year younger second seed Pole, Urszula Radwanska, to claim the spot in the final of the Tashkent Open having participated in the contest as an un-seeded player. She rounded off the
semi-final contest in straight sets 6-3, 6-3 taking just 78 minutes at the hard courts of Uzbekistan.
On Friday, both players locked horns for the first time in their professional careers. It was expected that the 40th ranked Pole star will clasp the win against the 22-year-old Romanian. However, the on paper predictions
were proved completely wrong as the 87th ranked Romanian stunned everyone at the arena with her mastery and command over the game.
In a post-match press conference, Begu commented, “I was really tired from yesterday's match and it's hard to recover on hard courts. But today I ran for every ball and put it back forcing Urszula to commit mistakes. I'm happy
to make it to my first final in Tashkent, but for now I'm not thinking about the final and just want to enjoy this moment and try and recover."
Radwanska was rocked hard right from the word go. She was under the cosh; failed to hold serve in the opening game of the match and just won a single point in the return game that gave a lead of 2-0 to her rival. It was a terrible
start for the match favourite player and the pressure of performing well probably adversely affected the game play of the 21-year-old Pole.
In the third game, Radwanska saved a breakpoint to hold serve and capitalized on a couple of unforced errors from her rival to win the breakpoint back and level the scores at 2-2. However, the stress was not released for long on
the Pole star as she was thumped back in the following game; losing the second breakpoint of the match.
Both players held their serves in the following three games and the scores were pushed to 5-3 in favour of the Romanian. Radwanska had to hold serve to stay alive in the set but she could just win two points and failed to keep
Begu away from winning the deciding breakpoint of the first set. It was a classic start for the underdog and a dismal one for the Pole.
Begu took a resounding lead of 5-1 in the second set as well and just lost one breakpoint on her way into the finals. She will contest a match against the 16-year-old Croatian, Donna Vekic, for the title.
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