TENNIS WTA FINALS – In a thrilling last day for the Round Robin stage of the WTA Finals, the last three matches of the day decided the four semifinalists.
In the first match of the day, Maria Sharapova won his first match of these WTA Finals, but her three set win over Agnieszka Radwanska eventually proved to be a sore victory, as the set she lost, despite having three match points, proved to cause her departure from Singapore.
She knew she had to win in straight sets to stand a chance to pass the stage and maybe it was this pressure, together with the bad losses of the first two matches, that caused her to lose her composure in the second set, when she was leading 5-1 and suffer an unexpected comeback from the Pole.
Radwanska forced the second set to a tiebreak and, there, she only needed to keep the ball in play, while Sharapova was gifting her last change to hold to Singapore with errors.
The third set was a one-woman show from Sharapova, but it was too late for hopes to live: she won 7-5 6-7 6-2, the 11th win over Radwanska in 13 encounters, but she was already packing.
The world number six had to wait for the result of the second match, had Caroline Wozniacki beaten Petra Kvitova, she would have passed the round. Later, during her press conference, Radwanska said to have promised to her good friend a shopping session with her credit card, had she won.
Apparently the promise paid off, the former world number one played an outstanding quality match, straight-setting Kvitova in great fashion.
The Czech player tried hard to impose her powerful game, but the Dane managed to neutralize it with aggressive serving and deep returning, which eventually gave her a solid 6-2 6-3 win, the fifth in nine matches against the two-time Wimbledon champion.
In the last match of the day, the deciding one for the Red Group, Ana Ivanovic defeated in two hours Simona Halep, but similarly to Sharapova, she could not afford losing any set and hence she said good bye to the finals.
It was a rollercoaster of emotions, first it seemed that the fourth seed could easily take the first set, as she went up 5-2, but the reaction of the Serb and the drop in the consistency of Halep caused the set to suddenly be open again.
In the tiebreak, Ivanovic took a big lead, but wasted it with errors that gave to the Roland Garros finalist the first set point. However, she became quite tentative and another reaction of the Serb cancelled her chance and finally took the first set.
The plot of the second set seemed to follow the already seen one of the first, Halep had full control over rallies and went 4-1 up, but Ivanovic closed the gap to 4-3. This time, the Serb’s comeback fell short, she played a terrible game and got broken. Once she was given the chance, the Romanian did not fail to close this time.
In the dead third set, a single break decided the final outcome in favour of world number seven 7-6 3-6 6-3.
Tomorrow’s semifinals will see Halep facing Radwanska, and, for the fourth time in the season and in the rematch of the US Open final, Williams against Wozniacki.
