 |
| Annett Kontaveit hits the forehand during her quarterfinal match with Belinda Bencic at the St. Petersburg Ladies Trophy |
Annett Kontaveit dug in once again to continue her run at the St. Petersburg Ladies Trophy Friday night. For the third time, the Estonian grabbed another victory against Belinda Bencic in a 7-6(7), 6-2 score to enter the semifinal at Sibur Arena.
The two met twice in back-to-back years with Kontaveit winning each one. After her destruction of the Swiss at the Australian Open in 2020, the Estonian added the second in Ostrava last year scoring her second straight-set defeat of Bencic. The fifth seed fought hard through each of her matches to this point, along with the second. Though she had a positive history against Bencic, Kontaveit would need her dominance to come to full form or see another battle on her hands.
She opened the match with a serve to love and broke Bencic for the early lead. The Estonian adjusted her return strategy and captured the third win, putting the Swiss in a hole. Bencic managed to hold serve in the fourth and notched another for the break. Sitting a game down, the fifth seed attempted to even up the score and fired a winner to achieve her goal.
She went after Kontaveit’s offense in the seventh, scoring a break that put her in front with the hope of building upon it. It was a tough service for Bencic, who was forced to deuce but held after playing three breaks to sit at 5-3. The second seed was feeling the troubles in her offense, committing a third double fault of the set. She overcame the problems and got within one to hope and push the set deeper.
Kontaveit pulled it all together to come through for the break back and go into the 11th with some heavy aggression. Her footwork on the first point set up a clean winner down the line, before drawing an error out of Bencic. Another error gave the Estonian three game points, watching Bencic smash one to the right. Kontaveit answered with a crosscourt ace to secure the hold and put pressure on Bencic to falter. She had two errors in the 12th but overcame them with errors coming from Kontaveit. She forced another one out of her to force a tiebreak where it was a one-point margin after five.
It remained that way through the next four until a slice from the second seed handed Bencic set point at 6-4. She blew it with a double fault, bringing Kontaveit within reach and leveled on a long return from the fifth seed. The Estonian earned her chance for set point only to see Bencic answer it at the net. A second try came up for the 26-year-old, who watched a long ball from the Swiss star clinch the set with a 9-7 win in one hour. The unforced errors were the biggest difference between the two, who had even games until the damage stood out. Bencic had 29 errors to Kontaveit’s 18.
With a lot of be proud of in how she ended the first set, the 26-year old went on a rampage against Bencic, breaking her after two breaks of deuce. She backed it up with comfortable service and added a third with a stronger double break. She then took a commanding 4-0 run on the fifth seed, who screamed in frustration that her game wasn’t up to snuff. The Swiss star struggled to recover but somehow forced deuce in the fifth. Despite all the efforts needed, she got on the scoreboard after two breaks, snapping Kontaveit’s five-game winning streak.
Bencic slowly found a way to dig in with her offense on the return end, and battle through every point. It earned her another game on the break that cut the Estonian’s lead in half. Two double faults rattled the fifth seed, who wanted to log more victories but instead allowed Kontaveit to serve for the match at 5-2. She drew errors from Bencic, who was all but out and kept up her winning ways. On match point, the 26-year-old smashed one in at the net to end a long battle that took 1 hour and 42 minutes.
She’ll face Jelena Ostapenko on Saturday for a spot in the final in hopes that the Latvian doesn’t reel in her aggressive style of tennis
No comments:
Post a Comment