Samantha Stosur labours through Monica Niculescu in the quarter-finals – Qatar Total Open 2012
Number three seed Australian, Samantha Stosur, was stretched to her limits before she overcame the unseeded Romanian opponent, Monica Niculescu, in the quarter-final battle of the Qatar Total Open on Friday afternoon. The Aussie
top-tenner took one hour and 44 minutes to conclude the three-setter, 6-2, 2-6, 6-3, booking a berth among the final-four of the WTA (Women’s Tennis Association) Premier-level tournament in Doha, Qatar.
It remained an evenly poised contest throughout, with the Romanian underdog giving some real tough time to her superior-ranked opponent. Stosur dominated the contest earlier on but tend to lose her way in the middle parts of the
match to let her opponent back in business. Despite of losing the opening set in a dismal manner, Niculescu made a tremendous recovery to pocket the second set. The unseeded Romanian was threatening an upset after the emphatic second set win but Stosur brought
all her experience into play and forced her way to victory by cracking two timely serve breaks in the final sets.
"Early in the second set I missed some opportunities. She grew in confidence and started playing better," Stosur said. "It's one of those matches where when you are in control, you have to keep going and keep going and keep going,
and know you're going to miss a few but you're going to make more than you miss. Monica plays a unique game that at times can put you off, but at the end of the day I'm happy with the way I bounced back in the middle of that third set."
Stosur clinched 42 out of 56 first serve points and struck five out of eight serve breaks in the contest to take the better of her Romanian opponent, who closely followed her with four out of nine break points in the match.
Suffering a dreary run of form since her US Open triumph last year, Stosur finally showed some glimpse of class at Qatar Total Open. Although she hasn’t faced a high ranked opponent so far in the tournament, the Aussie number one
has been promising through the initial rounds of the event. Her victories against the inferior-ranked players will help her a lot in gaining back her lost confidence and it will be very interesting to see how she will counter the belligerent fifth seed French,
Marion Bartoli, in the semi-final round. Bartoli also went through three sets to take down the unseeded Czech opponent, Lucie Safarova, 7-5, 4-6, 6-1, booking a date with Stosur in the semi-finals.
Tags: