TENNIS US OPEN – Italian Sara Errani beat Croatian player Mirjana Lucic-Baroni in three sets with 6-3 2-6 6-0 in one hour and 45 minutes thanks to a solid third set to get through to the quarter finals of the US Open for the second time in her career. In 2012 she reached the semifinal. Diego Sampaolo
US Open: All the interviews, results, draws and OoP
Number 12 seed Errani has made her return to the quarter final at the US Open two years after her fantastic US Open two years ago when she reached the semifinal
Lucic-Baroni provided the story of the first week of the US Open. The World Number 121 player reached the fourth round for the first time since 1999 after playing the qualifying round and knocked out Number 2 seed and this year’s Roland Garros finalist Simona Halep in the third round. It was a great return for Lucic who reached the Wimbledon semifinal in 1998 but she left tennis for five years for personal reasons. The World Number 121, who comes from the qualifying round, has won six consecutive matches for the first time since Wimbledon in 1999.
Errani clinched the first set with 6-3 in 33 minutes before Lucic-Baroni required a medical time-out between the first and the second sets. After playing the first game of the second set with a tape on her knee, Lucic Baroni began playing her best tennis and won the second set 6-2 to force the match to the third set. The Croatian hit 46 winners but committed 69 unforced errors. Errani hit just 4 winners to 9 unforced errors.
“It was a tough match. She served very strong. She hit the ball unbelievably strong. She is the kind of player I don’t like to play too much. I just tried to be focused on every point. I try to be consistent to run and be in every point. I want to fight. The other players have bigger strokes than me, but I try to stay in the match that way. It was a tough match. i felt good mentally”, said Errani.
“She made winners but committed unforced errors. I just have to try to make her make mistakes. This is my game against her. It is difficult for me to make winners when she hits the ball that strong. I knew that before going to the court.”
Errani won the fourth match after a hard week in which she recovered from 2-5 in the second set against Kirsten Flipkens, played two tough sets against Rodionova and rallied from 3-5 against Venus Williams in the third round.
In the quarter final the Italian will take on former World Number 1 Caroline Wozniacki, who edged Maria Sharapova in three sets wit 6-4 2-6 6-2. Wozniacki leads 2-1 in her previous head-to-head matches against Errani.
Despite the defeat Lucic-Baroni was happy with her performances in the past two weeks.
“This has been a good two weeks, the best so far since I can remember. Yeah, I am disappointed. Sara is a tough player to play. I felt like I ran out of gas a little bit. On 4-3 I hit a return and I felt a little pain. It was bothering me and I tried to tape it but the tape was not really comfortable, so I took it off”, said Lucic-Baroni.
Lucic-Baroni hit 46 winners but she made 69 unforced errors, a statistic which proved to be decisive. “I am frustrated. It was too much. It was really difficult to play because it was very windy. It was difficult to time the balls, especially on her serve. I wanted to keep playing aggressive but I just missed too much”
