Day Nine schedule in the Miami Open - the WTA semi finals and last of the ATP quarter finals.
Miami Open presented by Itaú - a WTA Premier Mandatory category tournament, on Hard Laykold, in Miami, Florida, USA, 20-31 March 2019.
Defending champion:
Sloane Stephens (13) who defeated Jelena Ostapenko (6) 7-6(5) 6-1
WTA semi finals
- Anett Kontaveit (21) v Ash Barty (12)
The only time the two had clashed was in 2014 as teenagers in qualifying for Wimbledon - Kontaveit won that one.
Kontaveit opened brightly, hitting some crisp cross court shots, especially off her forehand, not allowing the Barty slice to come into effect. The Estonian held serve well, and carried a confidence into the next game where she forced Barty into error enough to achieve a service break and lead 2-0.
Barty hit a winner in game three before rain came and delayed proceedings for a couple of hours.
Upon returning, Barty raced to three break points and on the third of these converted for 1-2, and a love game followed to tie things up, and rain came again.
Another lengthy delay before the pair returned and advanced the score to 3-3 after two strong service holds.
It was the Australian who broke open the match, her backhand slice beginning to worry Kontaveit and produce too many unforced errors off her racquet. The break in game seven, followed by a consolidating service hold, albeit requiring the dismissal of a break point, left Kontaveit at the line, needing to hold to stay in the set.
Barty broke again, this time to love, and led 6-3.
In set two, Barty saw two game points float away, and as in the first set she was broken to trail 1-2.
Steadying, Barty rode the back of Kontaveit errors to break and level at 3-3, and take the lead after evading a break point through strong serving.
From 3-4 and deuce, Kontaveit lost two rallies with forehand failures and found herself one game away from defeat.
On the first match point, Kontaveit played a marvellous drop shot winner. However, it wasn’t enough. Ash Barty served an ace to win 6-3 6-3 and book a place in her first Premier Mandatory final.
- Karolina Pliskova (5) defeated Simona Halep (2) 7-5 6-1
No comments:
Post a Comment