Marion Bartoli undoes Anabel Medina Garrigues in the semi-final of Internationaux De Strasbourg
Friday was a very successful day for the world number eleven Marion Bartoli of France as she successfully beat three-time Strasbourg champion Anabel Medina Garrigues of Spain 6-1, 6-2 to reach the final.
Top seed Bartoli put pressure on Garrigues’s serve throughout the match, winning 63 percent of points on return. The Frenchwoman is trying to boost up her confidence on clay en route to French Open after a first round defeat in
the Barcelona and second round exits in Charleston, Stuttgart, Madrid and Rome.
The 26-year-old Bartoli from France has been driving her game in top gear at the tournament. The Frenchwoman made quick work of eighth seeded Lucie Hradecka of Czech Republic in the quarterfinal of the tournament.
The French ace continued her impressive form in the following semi-final match and battled past her Spaniard opponent without much of a fight. She increased her pace and placement of strokes to outplay her talented opponent who
tried her best to keep pace with the experienced Frenchwoman but was unable to hold all her service games.
The match started with Bartoli coming out firing. Hitting many fluent winners off her blazing backhand side she broke the Garrigues serve first time get a 2-0 lead quickly. The Prolific form continued as she made no mistakes to
serve out at 5-0. The first set looked to be a bagel win for the Frenchwoman but her Spaniard opponent quickly came alive and took the set to 5-1. However, Bartoli successfully served out the set and grasped the set with a well paced and well timed drop-shot.
Bartoli continued her fighting form into the second set and did not allow her Spaniard opponent to break back. All Garrigues could do was watch now as Bartoli played some nice tennis to lead 6-2, although Garrigues had chances
to capitalize on points but failed and handed over the victory in straight sets.
The Frenchwoman got her pass into the final by virtue of 67 percent of points on service, 63 percent of points on return and 65 percent of points on total. In comparison, Garrigues lost the match with 37 percent of points on service,
33 percent of points on return and 35 percent of points in total.
It was a perennial struggle to hold serve for Garrigues; and once her major weapon failed to fire, the other parts of her game simply fell away. She was very weak during the whole match and lost the match with huge difference of
35 percent points.
Bartoli will now meet Andrea Petkovic of Germany in the final of Strasbourg International. Bartoli holds a 2-1 edge against Petkovic in their head-to-head series. Both players are in excellent form and anything could be expected.
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