Lucie Safarova wards off Sorana Cirstea’s resilience in quarterfinal – Generali Ladies Linz 2011
Czech Republic’s Lucie Safarova eased past Romanian qualifier Sorana Cirstea in straight sets at the Generali Ladies Linz 2011, a WTA Premier International event taking place on an indoor hard court in Linz, Austria. She registered
a 7-5, 6-2 score line against the 21-year-old Romanian to advance into the semi-finals on Friday.
Facing each other for the third time, world number 27 Safarova required almost one and half hour to dump the qualifier, ranked fifty-one spots below her, in order to advance into the last four of this tier-II event. She not only
took lead in the head-to-head series by 2-1 against Cirstea but also avenged her loss at US Open three years ago.
24-year-old Czech thundered into the Intersport Arena and earned the first blood in the opening game of the first set. She then exchanged three breaks and held her serve in the last game to seal the opener by winning seven games
to five.
Safarova saved two out of five breakpoints encountered and capitalised on four out of six breakpoint opportunities to her advantage. She also clobbered a much better first serve share of 56 percent as compared to Romanian’s 37
percent and registered a convincing 55 percent win on it.
The Brno native, Safarova carried her slashing ways in the final set as she earned the desiderated break in the opening game again to have an edge over her rival. She then maintained her composure to pocket entire serves. The Czech
broke Cirstea’s serve again in the seventh game to clinch the set with a reasonable 6-2 victory.
She saved the only hurdle faced and cashed in on both breakpoint opportunities to her advantage. Regardless of spilling more errors and producing a lower first serve share, the Czech pulled out the victory by registering an incredible
86 percent win on her first serve share.
Up next for Safarova is the seventh seeded Slovak Dominika Cibulkova who rallied past Australian lucky loser, Anastasia Rodionova in a three set mouth watering match. She lost the opener but overpowered the Aussie by converting
eight out of eleven breakpoint chances to her advantage in almost two hours.
"Lucie is a very tough opponent," Cibulkova said about the Czech. "The last time we played was in the first round of Wimbledon last year. She's lefty and is very talented."
The seed leads Safarova in the head-to-head series by 2-0 but the Czech can lower the trail if she stay focus and improve her defence.
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