Samantha Stosur breezes into the semis at Internazionali BNL d’Italia
Sixth seeded Australian Samantha Stosur stunned second seeded Italian Francesca Schiavone in straight sets at Internazionali BNL d’Italia, a WTA Premier 5 event held in Rome, Italy. She registered a 6-2, 6-4 victory to crash the
30-year-old Schiavone at her home soil on Friday.
World number seven Stosur triumphed over crowd favourite Schiavone, ranked two places above her, for the sixth time in seventy-seven minutes. After earning this success at Foro Italico, the Australian extended her lead in the head-to-head
series by 6-3 against the Schiavone.
27-year-old Australian entered the first set with rage mode and easily held her opening serve. She then kept her remaining serves plausibly and broke the Italian’s serve twice and clinched with an assuring 6-2 score line to silence
the crowd. The Australian saved the only breakpoint faced and converted two out of three breakpoint opportunities to her advantage to help win the opener easily.
Stosur kept momentum rolling into the final set as she held her entire serves superbly. Despite committing a lower first serve share, she earned an amazing 80 percent win on it. The Australian faced zero breakpoint and converted
only breakpoint opportunity to her advantage to seal the set by winning six games to four.
Schiavone had the entire crowd’s support to her side and she produced a higher first serve share of 67 percent as compared to the Australian’s 56 percent. She also registered an impressive 62 percent win on it. However, she failed
to convert only breakpoint opportunity to her advantage and saved only one out of four breakpoints conceded to eventually exit from the event.
Stosur had a monotonous season so far as this is the second time she reached to semis of an event this year after making a semi-final berth at Stuttgart.
"I think today was pretty close to the way I was playing last year," said Stosur, who went 20-3 on clay last year. "I played very well at the French Open last year and today I probably felt as close to that since then. But Li Na
is having a good week. It's always going to be tough whenever you go on the court."
The Australian will face the fourth seeded Chinese Li Na in the semi-finals. Li downed the Hungarian, Greta Arn with a breadstick in just sixty-eight minutes to reach this spot.
Stosur leads 2-0 in the head-to-head series against Li. Both players have yet to lose a set in this clay court tournament and it would be a worthwhile duel to watch.
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