Marion Bartoli beats Samantha Stosur in the semi-finals – AEGON International 2011
Samantha Stosur's hopes of winning at the AEGON International came to a sticky end as she went down in a 3-6, 1-6 defeat. Her opponent, Marion Bartoli handled the difficult conditions much better than the Aussie, winning the match
in straight sets and drummed Stosur out of the tournament taking just only 70 minutes of play.
The 27-year-old Aussie was playing a terrible game, not even having the foggiest idea, how to fix it. Despite breaking Bartoli in the first game of the match, Stosur failed to find the range of her groundstrokes and allowed Bartoli
to play a trick on her.
The match between Bartoli and Stosur looked to be an easy one at first, as Bartoli broke her opponent once in the beginning of the match to take the lead. However, Stosur added intrigue to their fourth meeting by scoring two aces
in the first set. At one time during the set, both women were neck-and-neck as Stosur cut the deficit to 3-3, but she could not maintain the lead and lost the first set.
Bartoli struck two aces and 74 percent of first serve, winning a whopping 83 percent behind her first serve and 38 percent behind her second serve respectively. In contrast Stosur won a meager 67 percent on her first serve and
could not convert the only break point opportunity she faced.
However, after winning the first set, Bartoli became more confident and more accurate with her ground-strokes, pushing Stosur behind the baseline as she utilized her two-handed backhands to devastating effect. The French No.1 looked
determined, playing aggressively and forcing several errors out of the Australian.
Unfortunately for Stosur, she failed to save three of her break points which arose in the decider, and from then on, Bartoli renewed belief shone through, as she took advantage of a lackluster service game from the Aussie No.1,
and held to set up a final clash with Petra Kvitova of Czech Republic.
Kvitova made it to the semi-finals after her Slovakian opponent, Daniela Hantuchova announced retirement due to an injury while trailing at 6(9)-7, 2-4. The Czech woman struck a whopping seven aces in just over 90 minutes against
the Slovakian, who entered the tournament in pretty good form as she managed to reach the final in Birmingham last Monday.
Both players are set to contest their second meeting with Bartoli leading their head-to-head series to 1-0. Provided that Bartoli is sufficiently recuperated, she should have plenty of game to get past Petrova, who is not a true
grass-court player. But if she is shackled, Petrova hits big off the ground and Bartoli would not be able to bully her around the baseline like she did with her prior opponents.
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