Mirjana Lucic-Baroni crushed fourth-seeded Kristina Mladenovic of France 6-1, 6-1 to reach the final of the Strasbourg International on Friday, 19 years after losing to Steffi Graf in the championship decider.
The 34-year-old Croatian needed one hour to beat Mladenovic, a wild card playing in her first semi-final this season, saving all four break points she faced and breaking the Frenchwoman’s serve five times.
“Nineteen years in between the finals. It’s amazing,” Lucic-Baroni said. “It’s like coming home now for me in Strasbourg.”
Lucic-Baroni will face Caroline Garcia, who beat lucky loser Virginie Razzano 6-7 (3), 6-4, 7-5 in an all-French match.
Garcia had five aces, dropped serve five times, but broke Razzano seven times in a topsy-turvy match lasting nearly three hours.
“It’s important for my confidence so get wins like this, especially ahead of Roland Garros,” Garcia said. “It was a fighting performance. Losing that first set was tough, but I came back.”
Lucic-Baroni’s third and last title came two years ago at Quebec City, while Garcia has one career title.
However, Garcia leads 3-0 in their head-to-head meetings, two on hard courts and one on clay.
“Against Garcia, I’ve always posted negative results,” Lucic-Baroni said. “But hopefully that will change tomorrow. I’m playing some great tennis and haven’t been on court very long, despite coming through [qualifiers].”
NUREMBERG CUP
AP, NUREMBERG, Germany
Mariana Duque-Marino had to play two matches and won them both on Friday to reach the Nuremberg final.
Duque-Marino was looking for her second career title against Dutch qualifier Kiki Bertens in yesterday’s singles final.
The Colombian played three sets for nearly three hours in the morning in outlasting the US’ Varvara Lepchenko 5-7, 7-6 (4), 7-2 in a quarter-final that was postponed on Thursday because of rain.
Duque-Marino needed just more than an hour to dispatch third-seeded Annika Beck of Germany 7-5, 6-1 in the afternoon. Beck was the last seed in the tournament.
In the second semi-final, Bertens came from behind to beat Julia Goerges of Germany 3-6, 6-4, 7-6 (4).
The tournament is a warm-up for the French Open that starts tomorrow in Paris.
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