Is the door ajar for Anne Keothavong to win her maiden WTA Tour title?
The British No. 3 – although to be fair before a knee injury prematurely ended her season in July 2009 she was Great Britain’s top women’s tennis player – has reached the semi-finals in Memphis for the second straight year to quickly get her game back on track after that enforced lay-off.
The 2010 Cellular South Cup draw was not, it has to be said, a deep one. Headed by Maria Sharapova, and with rising American star Melanie Oudin (ranked as world No. 53 at the time of seeding) as second seed there was plenty of opportunity for some of the lesser lights to grasp the nettle and take a shot at glory.
Keothavong is one who, so far, has done just that. The world No. 121 was one of two Britons to reach the quarter-finals of the event, along with the nation’s current No. 1 Elena Baltacha.
Baltacha was in form leading into the event, travelling to Memphis from the $100k ITF event in Midland, where she had just won the title, defeating top seed Lucie Hradecka in the final. The 26-year-old continued on her winning ways in the first couple of rounds in Memphis, but that set her on a collision course with Sharapova in the quarters.
The world No. 70, who reached the third round of the 2010 Australian Open to equal her best performance at a Grand Slam, challenged Sharapova in the second set but in the end the Russian proved too strong, and ran out a 6-2, 7-5 winner.
The draw was kinder to Keothavong, pitting her against world No. 87 Karolina Sprem in a quarter-final that she won 6-4, 6-3. The stars also aligned for the Londoner in the quarter-final that would decide her next opponent, with teenage Oudin’s own dreams of a maiden WTA title – which she’s been harbouring for almost a decade less than the Britons – coming to an end at the hands of qualifier Sofia Arvidsson.
The semi-final between Keothavong and Arvidsson will be the eighth time the pair have faced one another across the net in their careers, and it’s the Swede who holds the 4-3 lead. Still, it means Keothavong is in with a fighting chance in the semis this year and should perform better than at about the same time last year, when 2009 top seed Caroline Wozniacki conceded just one game in the penultimate round of the tournament.
Should Keothavong see off the 2006 champion in the semis, and reach the first WTA final of her career, in all likelihood it will be Sharapova who awaits her in the final. And let’s face it – the former World No. 1 can only be playing Memphis (winner’s cheque, $37,000) instead of the Dubai Tennis Championships (winner’s cheque, $350,000) in the belief that the title is hers for the taking.
Post-shoulder injury, Sharapova isn’t quite the intimidating force she once was, but you can guarantee the glamorous blonde won’t be about to let a player ranked outside the top 100 stand in her way of winning the trophy here.
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