Kvitova ends Garcia run to reach Wuhan semis
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E-mail Shanghai Daily, September 26, 2014
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Eugenie Bouchard of Canada hits a return to Alize Cornet of France en route to her 6-3, 7-5 quarterfinal victory at the Wuhan Open in central China's Hubei Province yesterday. |
Wimbledon champion Petra Kvitova ended the dream run of France's Caroline Garcia with a clinical performance to reach the semifinals of the Wuhan Open yesterday.
Kvitova, the highest seed standing at the hardcourt tournament in central China's Hubei Province after the exits of top two seeds Serena Williams and Romanian Simona Halep, defeated Garcia 6-3, 6-4 at the US$2.4 million inaugural WTA event.
The 24-year-old Czech broke Garcia, ranked 49 in the world, once in each set to win the quarterfinal.
Garcia, 20, accounted for former world No. 1 Venus Williams and Agnieszka Radwanska en route to the last eight in the tournament but too many unforced errors hurt her yesterday.
"I know Garcia had a great week here, that she beat Venus and Aga 7-6 in the third. You always have to be prepared for a fight," Kvitova said.
"I knew that she can play really well, and that she can serve well and play very aggressively from the baseline, so I knew that I had to be ready for her."
The victory also kept twice Wimbledon champion Kvitova on course for qualifying for the year-ending WTA Finals in Singapore. The Czech will face Elina Svitolina in today's semifinal after the Ukrainian beat German seventh seed Angelique Kerber 6-4, 7-6 (3).
A title at Wuhan will confirm Kvitova's spot with Serena Williams, Maria Sharapova and Halep having already booked their places.
Another player who kept her hopes alive for the Singapore event was Canadian Eugenie Bouchard.
The sixth seed also marched into the semifinals with a 6-3, 7-5 win against another Frenchwoman, Alize Cornet.
In southern Guangdong Province, top seed David Ferrer was bundled out of the Shenzen Open second round by Serb Viktor Troicki.
To compound the Spaniard's misery, the 3-6, 4-6 defeat will not help his chances of reaching the year-ending ATP World Tour Finals in London.
Ferrer, 32, is currently seventh in the race to qualify for the November 9-16 event. Novak Djokovic, Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal have already booked three of the eight spots for the singles.
Tomas Berdych is almost neck and neck with Ferrer, just 25 points behind in eighth spot before this week's tournaments, but ninth-placed Milos Raonic is not far behind, with Grigor Dimitrov and Andy Murray on his heels.
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