Monica Niculescu battles past Anne Keothavong into title match – Luxembourg Open 2011
Romanian Monica Niculescu triumphed over British qualifier Anne Keothavong in brutal three sets at the BGL BNP Paribas Luxembourg Open 2011, a WTA International event taking place on the indoor hard courts in Luxembourg City, Luxembourg.
She registered a 7-5, 4-6, 6-3 success over the British starlet to secure a title round spot on Saturday.
In a match between two WTA stars craving for their maiden WTA title, Niculescu edged over the British woman, ranked ninety-three in the Sony Ericsson WTA Premier rankings, on their fifth meeting. She not only lowered the trail
in the head-to-head series by 2-3 against Keothavong but also inched towards her dream of lifting a title.
24-year-old Niculescu high spiritedly entered the opening set and plucked in her serve in the opening game to confidently progress in the match. She lost her blood in the third game but quickly recovered in the proceeding game.
The Romanian kept spilling errors to gift away her serves twice more. She did recover from her loss in the following games and then overwhelmed the British resilience by breaking her serve for the fourth time in the last game. Niculescu saved one out of four
breakpoints came across but converted four out of eleven breakpoint opportunities to her advantage.
Keothavong repeated her ways and lost her opening serve in the second game to go 2-0 down. However, she re-focused and went on a four games killing spree. The British woman then held her remaining serves to seal the equaliser with
a 6-4 win.
The Romanian got the first blood in the final set and cruised to take a 3-0 lead. Despite losing her lead in the fifth game, she broke Keothavong’s serve again in the eighth game and then kept her serve to clinch the decider by
winning six games to three.
"I was really dead but I used all my powers to stay out there and play one more point," the blooming Niculescu said. "The crowd was behind me and there were so many Romanians behind me. It was an unbelievable feeling. I've had
a great year and I'm so happy I'm in the final in Luxembourg."
"I'm obviously gutted I couldn't make the final today," Keothavong, who fell 0-7 in her career WTA semi-finals, commented afterwards. "Monica's unique in her own way. You never know what's coming next, which is why she's so difficult
to play."
Next challenge for the Romanian is the top seeded Belarusian Victoria Azarenka who breezed past sixth seeded German Julia Goerges in straight sets to reach this spot.
Niculescu trails 0-3 against the Belarusian and she needs to raise the bar of her game to upset the world number three, Azarenka.
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