Elina Svitolina, the 8th seed, joins Venus Williams, Karolina Pliskova, and Roberta Vinci in the semifinals of the WTA Elite Trophy Zhuhai. The Ukrainian beat Carla Suárez Navarro, the 2nd seed, in a three-set marathon match that lasted 2 hours and thirty-seven minutes, the longest match thus far in the tournament. Each player came into this match with a win over Andrea Petkovic earlier in the tournament. Svitolina has one title in 2015 from Marrakech; she followed that with a quarterfinal appearance at the French Open. Suárez Navarro was a finalist in Rome, Miami, and Antwerp. This was their third meeting with Svitolina beating Suárez Navarro at Cincinnati in 2014 and the twenty-seven year old Spaniard winning in Austria in 2013.
Both players struggled on second serves today with 14 breaks of serve out of 36 opportunities. The first set opened with three breaks of serve before Suárez Navarro held at love in the fourth game. Svitolina then held with a good effort and got on serve in the sixth game thanks to two errors and two double faults by the Spaniard. Each player held serve over the next six tough games, including a hold by Suárez Navarro in the eighth game that lasted twelve minutes, to lead to a tiebreak won by the Spaniard, 7-4. It was a very tight set with nine of the twelve games going to deuce. Suárez Navarro was the more aggressive player taking balls early and going for winners, often overplaying her shots. She had twenty-two winners in the set compared to seven for Svitolina. The Spaniard also had many more errors than Svitolina, especially on her backhand wing. The twenty-one year old Svitolina chased down every ball, many times leading to errors by the Spaniard.
The second set began with three breaks of serve as well, but Svitolina went on to win it 6-1. Suárez Navarro was hampered by a left thigh injury and attempted to keep the points short. Svitolina continued to run down every shot and by the fifth game the Spaniard seemed resigned to losing the set. Svitolina won 75% of her first serves versus only 33% for Suarez Navarro.
Suárez Navarro won the first two games of the decider with beautiful forehand winners and forcing errors from Svitolina. The momentum then shifted back to Svitolina’s favor as she won the next four games. The Ukrainian held at love, got the break back in the fourth game, came back from a 15-40 deficit to hold in the fifth game and broke Suarez Navarro easily in the sixth game to go up 4-2. The Spaniard got back on serve in the seventh game with two winners and two errors from Svitolina. However, Svitolina won the next two games and the match taking advantage of Suárez Navarro’s impaired movement and missed open court shots by the Spaniard.
Svitolina competed very well and was delighted with the win. After the match she said, “It was a marathon match. It was really tough and I’m really happy with the way I played today.”
The second match of the day was not so closely contested. Anna Schmiedlova stunned the US Open finalist, Roberta Vinci in a match that lasted less than an hour: 6-1, 6-0. The alternate, who replaced the injured Caroline Wozniacki, had a strong, athletic performance and dominated the match. She did not face a breakpoint while converting five of six opportunities. The Slovakian won 72% of her first serves compared to only 46% by the Italian. Schmiedlova won nearly twice as many points as the 4th seeded Vinci, 55 compared to 31, respectively. Vinci nonetheless advances to the semifinals due to her win over Svetlana Kuznetsova earlier in the week.
