HONG KONG—On a Sunny afternoon at the Prudential Hong Kong Tennis Open, Daria Gavrilova, the 8th seed provided another shock in the tournament by beating No 1 seed, Angelique Kerber, in straight sets, 6-3, 6-1.
Kerber looked listless throughout the match, despite encouraging cheers from the partisan Hong Kong crowd. She began well, taking the opening 2 games, to lead 2-0 in the 1st set, and then lost 12 of the next 14 games. She showed patches of brilliance, but it was a sub-par performance by Kerber. In the post match interview she said she “was not at her best ”, and “tired, after a long season”. Her body and mind need rest before the season finale.
Gavrilova played well. She was aggressive, playing strongly at the net, produced excellent passing shots, and looked much fresher than Kerber, the more the match progressed. She was god value for her win, and her first victory in 3 matches against Angelique Kerber.
This was always a potential “banana skin” for Kerber. She can now recuperate and focus on her next tournament. Gavrilova can look forward to a semi-final tomorrow against Kristina Mladenovic of France, who beat Bethanie Mattek-Sands in a tight, entertaining 3 set match between the two unseeded but impressive players, 3-6, 6-3, 7-6.
The 2nd match on Centre Court between Caroline Wozniacki of Denmark and Qiang Wang of China exciting to watch with both players serving well, playing long baseline rallies, hitting hard penetrating shots and asking their opponent lots of questions. Both players had come to win and the Tianjin girl was not overawed by the credentials of her well known opponent.
Wang served consistently well matching Wozniacki’s strong play but after moving into a 3-2 lead she started to make a few errors allowing Wozniacki to draw level at 3-3 before going on to win the next three games to take the set 6-3. Wang again started well in the 2nd to lead Wozniacki 3-2, but the Dane worked hard gained a 5-3 lead. With strong crowd encouragement Wang pulled the set back to 5-5. The next 2 games were very close but Wozniacki kept down the errors on important points to take the match 6-3, 7-5.
The late evening singles between Jelena Jankovic and Alise Cornet went to a 3rd set. Cornet won the first set but Jankovic lifted her game to take the next 2 sets winning 3-6, 6-4, 6-2. Jankovic will meet Caroline Woziacki in the semi-final, scheduled as the 2nd match on Saturday Oct 15.
In the doubles the Taiwanese No 1 seeds, Hao-ching Chan and Chin-wei Chan won their semi-final against Aoyama and Ninomiya 6-2, 7-62 to move into the final. While Naomi Broady and Heather Watson of Great Britain will play Nao Hibino of Japan and Aleksandra Naydenova of Bulgaria in the other semi-final on Saturday Oct 15, to decide the pairing to play Chan and Chan in Sunday’s Final.
Grahame Carder is a sports enthusiast, former player and now resident in Hong Kong.
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