Friday 25 August 2017

Gavrilova pushing for top 20

Daria Gavrilova has made the semi finals of New Haven, ending the fine run of qualifier Kirsten Flipkens.

Gavrilova is attempting to break into the top twenty for the first time, having lingered around the mid twenties for some time, and reaching a career high of 21.

A win in this tournament would take her to 20 given other results going her way.


The win against Flipkens was always happening once the first four games were registered to the Australian.

Unfortunately the occasion must have been a bit much for Kirsten as she delivered too many unforced errors after a promising start at 40-15 in the opening game on her serve.

Strangely Daria only had three break points for the set but managed to convert two.  Despite the poor beginning, Kirsten created six break points and was unable to use any of them.  6-2 to Dasha was the result.


Similar for Flipkens in set two - five more break points all saved by Gavrilova and one of four used to her advantage by Dasha.


6-2 6-4 ushered Gavrilova into a semi final battle with the winner of the fourth quarter final between top seed Aga Radwanska and 8th seed Shuai Peng.


The other semi final is between second seed Dominika Cibulkova and qualifier Elise Mertens.

Cibulkova easily accounted for sixth seed Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova and Mertens didn't raise her racquet with the withdrawal of Shuai Zhang prior to their match.


In Winston-Salem more top seeds have fallen, leaving top seed Roberto Bautista Agut as a quarter finalist along with Steve Johnson (6) (lost to unseeded Kyle Edmund), Hyeon Chung (13) (lost to unseeded Damir Dzumhur) and Borna Coric (14).

Roberto awaits Taylor Fritz in his quarter final, while Borna plays Jan-Lennard Struff.


Johnson began strongly against Edmund, winning all points on his first serve and 11 of 18 on his second, in the opening set, enough to take it 7-5.

Edmund was unfazed and pounced on the Johnson second serve, winning 67% of points on it in set two and 75% in set three.

The American serve was broken three times over the final two sets while Edmund's remained solid.

The result 5-7 6-3 6-3 to the Brit.

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