Li Na dumps Lucie Safarova to move into the last four – Apia International Sydney 2012
Fourth seed, Chinese world number five, Li Na, ousted the 25th ranked Czech, Lucie Safarova, in the quarter-final of Apia International Sydney on Wednesday. Both players went face-to-face at Sydney Olympic Park
and contested for an hour and 50 minutes; Li dominated the show and claimed the spot in the semis with a straight set 6-2, 7-6(3) triumph over the Czech.
Both players had seen each other on four prior occasions. Czech had always favoured the clay court challenges; Safarova defeated Li in May 2005 in Estoril Open on clay court. Unluckily the rest of contests were played on
hard courts and were easily bagged by Li; Monterrey Open 2009, China Open 2009 and Cincinnati 2011 were the events that were pocketed by the fourth seed. It was obvious that she had a slight advantage of playing on hard courts in Sydney as well.
The Chinese commenced the proceedings in style as she dominated the show with a successful serve game, coupled with a break in the next game to double her lead. Third game was also held by the Li and scores were pushed to
3-0 in her favour. Safarova finally got off the mark and managed to clinch the first successful serve game in the fourth game of the set.
Breaks were traded in the next two games of the set as the scores leaned to 4-2 in favour of Li. Fourth seed further strengthened her position in the match by hanging on to her serve in the seventh game of the set and broke
in the next game to take the first set at 6-2 in an assertive fashion.
Second set was pretty dull as per the standards of both players, as none of them was willing to take risk of improvising and putting the competitor under pressure. The see-saw battle between the players continued and no serve
breaks were seen in the second set, enforcing a decisive tie-breaker round at 6-6.
With immense experience and non-stop encouragement from her husband-c*m-coach from the sidelines, Li was the hot favourite to win the set and she lived up to the expectations. First four rallies were equally distributed in
terms of points but then Li bagged couple of points in succession to seal victory and the semi-final berth at the Apia International Sydney. She take on the winner of the match between second seed, Petra Kvitova, and Daniela Hantuchova in the battle for the
title shot.
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