Second seed Petra Kvitova recovered from a set down against Hsieh Su-wei to end the unseeded Taiwanese’s run at the Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships on Friday with a 3-6, 6-2, 6-4 victory that saw the Czech reach her third final of the year.
Kvitova, who made an astute tactical adjustment midway through the match that changed the course of the contest, was to face Switzerland’s Belinda Bencic in Saturday’s final.
Hsieh, who knocked out Wimbledon champion Angelique Kerber and fourth seed Karolina Pliskova during her remarkable run to the semi-finals, kept Kvitova guessing with her unorthodox shot selection and soon had the world number four on the back foot.
Photo: Reuters
Two-time Wimbledon champion Kvitova is one of the hardest hitters in the women’s game, but found herself outwitted by Hsieh in a tense first set and the Czech’s frustration showed as she made 12 unforced errors to Hsieh’s one in the opener.
Kvitova, this year’s Australian Open runner-up and the champion in Dubai in 2013, switched things up in the second set, stepping up well within the baseline to take time away from Hsieh and rushing to the net behind her own powerful serve.
The new approach paid dividends and Kvitova began reeling off winners at will as she raced into a 4-1 lead before claiming the set to force a decider.
The pair began the third set with an exchange of service breaks, but Kvitova broke again and then held her serve to get in front before wrapping up the win.
In the end, for all her guile and improvisational shot-making, Hsieh had no answer to Kvitova’s raw power, mustering just 14 clean winners compared with 48 from her opponent.
“It was a tough one today, for sure,” said Kvitova, who has won two Wimbledon titles. “She really didn’t give me anything for free. It was a tough first set. I’m glad that I was able to came back in the second. I didn’t play great at the end of the first.”
BENCIC VS SVITOLINA
Bencic stepped closer to ending a four-year title drought when she squeezed past defending champion Elina Svitolina 6-2, 3-6, 7-6 (3) to reach the final.
Svitolina, who reached the last four without dropping a set, lost her serve early and made 10 unforced errors as she surrendered the first set without carving out a single break point against Bencic.
The 21-year-old Swiss, who triumphed in Eastbourne and Toronto in 2015, and reached a career-high No. 7 in the world in 2016 before injuries stalled her progress, won 85 percent of her first-serve points as she dominated the opening set, but Svitolina turned the tables in the second.
The Ukrainian, who won the last two editions of the Dubai tournament, did not give up without a fight, breaking Bencic early before running away with the second set to force a decider.
Both players stayed on serve in the third until Svitolina broke to take a 5-3 lead, but Bencic rallied strongly, winning eight points in a row to regain the upper hand.
Svitolina saved three match points to send the contest into a tiebreak and this time Bencic made no mistake, winning four of the last five points to book her spot in the final.
DOUBLES SEMI-FINALS
In the doubles semi-finals, Hsieh won the Taiwanese showdown against the Chan sisters in emphatic fashion, as she partnered with Barbora Strycova to race to a 6-2, 6-1 victory over Chan Hao-ching and Latisha Chan in just 55 minutes.
“I thought we played one of our best matches of the tournament,” Strycova told the WTA Web site.
“I have a good partner, so I wasn’t worried too much on the court,” Hsieh said. “I let my partner control me on the court. If I’m a little tired and cannot think, I say: ‘Ok, you’re going to control me.’ She does that really well, like yesterday she said: ‘Go down the line,’ and I did, and I won the point, so good job, Barbora.”
In the final, the Taiwanese-Czech third seeds were due to face Czech-Russian seventh seeds Lucie Hradecka and Ekaterina Makarova.
“They’re big hitters, and I’ve never played against this couple, but I’ve played both of them with different partners,” Strycova said. “We just have to be ready for big shots and just try to have fun, and play some tricky tennis.”
“They’re a great team, so we’ll just try our best,” Hsieh said.
Additional reporting by Dave Carroll
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