Li Na slides past Agnieszka Radwanska into the last four – China Open 2012
World number eight, Li Na, continues to shine bright at Beijing. She overpowered the third seed Pole, Agnieszka Radwanska, in the quarter-final of the China Open; performing the act in straight sets 6-4, 6-2.
The defending champion from Poland lasted just an hour and 30 minutes into the quarter-final contest before bowing out to the number one local superstar. The overall head-to-head series was lead by the 30-year-old Chinese who makes
it 5-3 with this triumph. This year has been very productive for the seventh seed Chinese especially against the 23-year-old Pole; ousted her in three different occurrences including this one with just a single loss.
Radwanska was under the cosh from the start. She was on the verge of losing a crucial breakpoint in the first game but did well to hang on to her serve and denied her opponent from an early breakthrough. On the other hand, the
Chinese superstar made no mistake on her four serves and tied the scores without any pressure.
The see-saw battle continued for the first six games of the match. However, the following breakpoint for Li proved critical in separating the two players in the opening set. The Chinese broke serve to take a lead and protected
it with a serve hold. Radwanska had to break serve back to keep the set alive but couldn’t in the following two return games and gifted the first set to her rival.
It was expected that the third seed Pole will fight back into the contest courtesy some hard hitting but the exact opposite was witnessed at the hard courts of Beijing. Radwanska did well to keep the scores together until 2-2 but
failed miserably in succession to handover the set after a promising start. Li won two breakpoints on the trot and lost just three points on her serve in the two games to book a spot in the last four of the contest.
Li Na will be going head-to-head against the former world number one, Maria Sharapova, who won the quarter-final encounter against the injury stricken Angelique Kerber without losing a single game.
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