Samantha Stosur slays Dominika Cibulkova to reach the last four – French Open 2012
World number six, Samantha Stosur, ousted the 16th ranked Slovak, Dominika Cibulkova, to book a spot in the semi-finals of the Roland Garros French Open on Tuesday. It was a shocking two-setter that witnessed some dominating
display from the Aussie number one. Final scores were 6-4, 6-1.
Stosur started the match in stylish fashion, forcing her rival to dig deep and save an early breakthrough. She just dropped a single point on her serve and once again piled up pressure on the Slovak, who looked a bit out of touch.
A thumping serve hold was followed up with a breakpoint that was won to love by the Aussie star.
It was scintillating beginning to the match. Cibulkova picked up momentum in the following game but squandered three back-to-back breakpoints that proved to be suicidal in the end. She saved four breakpoints in the longest game
being played in the match but couldn’t stop the Aussie starlet from bagging yet another breakthrough to lead 5-2.
The first set was over in a flash with just one possible breakthrough for the Slovak that posted a respectable score line for her. Apart from that, she was completely owned by the 28-year-old Aussie who looked invincible to say
the least.
It was the second encounter between the two contenders and Stosur had already one the previous meeting so the psychological pressure was on the Slovak. However, with a major upset under her belt; defeating the world number one,
Victoria Azarenka, she was expected to perform better.
The second set was a complete disaster for the Slovak who failed to register anything positive except the opening serve hold. She was broken three times on the trot. The Aussie star bulldozed her completely and left no opportunity
at. Just three points were lost by Stosur on her serves after the second game that shows the level of domination from the Aussie in the set.
In a post-match interview, Stosur said, “She was giving me a little bit of court to use standing where she was to return my serve; having said that, she still got the ball back pretty deep a lot of the time and hit some good, penetrating
ground strokes. But it still let me open up the court and go the other way to get her running off the first shot. I woke up feeling good this morning and had a good warm-up, and I guess that kind of transferred onto the match court. I really did what I wanted
to do."
Next up for the Aussie is the in-form Italian upset queen, Sara Errani.
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