Nadia Petrova stuns Samantha Stosur in the semis – Toray Pan Pacific Open 2012
Former world number three, Nadia Petrova, outclassed the ninth ranked Aussie star, Samantha Stosur, in the semi-final of the Toray Pan Pacific Open on Friday. She squashed the 28-year-old competitor in straight sets 6-4, 6-2; reaching
the second final of the singles event this season.
Stosur won the toss and elected to serve first but the decision went against her as she failed to win the opening game; rather managed just a single point out of it. Petrova had nothing to lose so she played her natural game and
trounced her rival to a trail of 0-2.
The 30-year-old Russian kept her foe under the cosh throughout the opening set; had an opportunity to break serve in the fifth game but couldn’t capitalize on that. She faced no resistance at all on her serves and scuttled past
her opponent registering the opening set triumph courtesy an early breakthrough.
The second set began with a serve hold for Stosur but she couldn’t repeat the performance in the third game of the set. The Russian protected the breakthrough with a serve hold and made no mistake is pushing the scoreboard to 4-2.
The eighth seed Aussie lost another breakpoint in the seventh game that allowed Petrova to end the match earlier than expected taking an hour and 47 minutes.
During an interview after the end of the match, Petrova said, “Yesterday Sam beat Maria, who is one of the top players right now, so I knew I had to put in a good performance, and I think I did. My serve really helped, because
when I'm holding my serve I can focus on breaking serve, and Sam serves very big so that's very important. I'm happy I stayed mentally strong throughout the match and when I was serving it out at the end. I'm very happy with how I played today."
She further added, “I haven't played the final of these kinds of events for a while. It's a really good achievement for me. I'm going to enjoy it.”
Agnieszka Radwanska will look to defend her title in the final showdown against Nadia Petrova.
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