Marion Bartoli overpowers Lucie Safarova to reach the semi-final draw – AEGON International 2012
Ninth ranked French powerhouse, Marion Bartoli, is still looking very strong for bagging her maiden championship title this season, as she overwhelmed the world number 21, Lucie Safarova, in the quarter-finals of the AEGON International
on Thursday. The fourth seeded Frenchwomen wrapped up her 23rd victory of the current year in straight sets, 6-4, 6-2, taking just 73 minutes of play to earn a place in the semi-final of the grass-court event in Eastbourne, United Kingdom.
It was a fairly one-sided contest, with 27-year-old Bartoli dominating for most of the time. She had defeated Safarova on their last three successive meetings and her Thursday’s victory took her to a 7-1 lead in the all-time head-to-head
series. The fourth seeded contender spared just six games in the entire matchup for the Czech opponent and had no real difficulties in overcoming the limited resistance offered by Safarova.
"Footwork is absolutely the key," Bartoli commented after the battle, "If you get late to the ball you have absolutely no chance, because the ball scoops to the court and you're hitting backwards all the time. You're hitting late.
It's really not what you want to do on grass. So you have to get really low and get your feet moving in that low position, which is always quite hard to do, but it's something I always felt good doing, especially compared to clay. I've always enjoyed my first
two or three practices on grass when I'm coming off of clay. That's really my best time."
Bartoli took off the contest with her usual aggression and held her opening two serves before drawing first blood in the fifth game to lead 4-2. Safarova registered her only break point of the match in the eighth game to level
the scores at 4-4, only to be broken by the Frenchwomen in the very next game to fall back at 5-4. Bartoli served out of the opening set convincingly, bagging it at 6-4 to lead 1-0 in the contest.
A far sloppy performance from Safarova in the following set made it easy for Bartoli to get the upper hand early. The fourth seeded French stung cracking breaks of serve in the third and fifth games to lead 5-1 and then served
out of the match assertively.
Bartoli will face the surprise candidate from Austria, Tamira Paszek, in the semi-finals of the AEGON International on Friday. Paszek was successful against the Bulgarian number one, Tsvetana Pironkova, in the quarter-final draw.
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