Kimiko Date-Krumm beats Tamarine Tanasugarn to reach the final – The Royal Indian Open 2012
World number 146, Kimiko Date-Krumm, continued her emphatic run at the Royal Indian Open and dismissed the 154th ranked Thai, Tamarine Tanasugarn, in the semi-final of the tournament on Saturday. She showed immense courage
and stamina to stay up for an epic three-setter and clinched the victory 6-4, 5-7, 6-4. The 42-year-old Japanese woman will definitely try to end the current season with a bang on Sunday.
The head-to-head scores between the two veterans were 3-1 in favour of the 35-year-old Thai. It seemed an easy draw for the Thai professional but turned out to be a disaster in the end; witnessing a barrage of winner coming at
her and a bulk of uncharacteristic unforced errors that completely changed the whole course of the match since the beginning.
Krumm’s serve was broken in the opening game but a perfect reply from the Japanese lady helped her to equalize at 1-1. She held her nerve and played a brilliant winner down the line to earn another breakpoint. A serve hold helped
her to pile a lead of 4-1. She had an opportunity to serve out the set in the ninth game but fall victim to a breakthrough. However, she recovered well and broke serve back to win the opening set.
The second set witnessed a tight battle featuring a swap of breakpoints in the middle. Both players were well on course for a tie-breaker round before the Thai professional dug deep to clinch a breakthrough in the 11th
game and held her serve with ease to enforce the final set into play.
Some incredible scenes were witnessed in the final battle. A serve hold for Krumm at the start was followed by three back-to-back breakpoints. The Japanese veteran again held her serve to make it 4-1 in her favour and broke serve
to post a resounding lead of 5-1. It was the moment when she had her first opportunity to serve out the match but she failed to do so. She failed on the second attempt as well and the scores were pushed to 5-4. Tanasugarn did all the hard work and just had
to hold serve to keep the match alive but failed to do so and lost the encounter in such an agonizing manner.
Andrea Petkovic of Germany will start the final clash as the hot favourite on Sunday.
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