By Giovanni Vianello
In the first semi-final of the WTA Tournament in Rabat, Morocco, Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova eased her way past Italy’s Sara Errani 6-4, 6-0.
The first player to serve was Errani who, despite an initial advantage of 40-15, immediately went down a break. In contrast, Pavlyuchenkova held her serve before securing a double break. Throughout the encounter Errani struggled a lot with her ball toss on serve and failed to find depth with her baseline strokes. The Italian managed to retrieve one of the breaks to revive her match hopes. Pavlyuchenkova then dangerously went down 15-30 in the sixth game, but managed to secure a 4-2 lead with three consecutive points. The roller coaster encounter between the two continued throughout the opening set before the Russian grabbed her third break of the match to seal the opening set.
The second set was a one-sided whitewash. Errani’s tentative play was overwhelmed by the baseline power of Pavlyuchenkova.
“I’m really happy to reach the finals here,” Pavlyuchenkova said. “I’m happy with the way I was fighting, and I beat a good player today. I’ve [been] fighting every point, every match and I really wanted to do well here.”
In the second semifinal, Francesca Schiavone (the 2010 Roland Garros winner) knocked out Varvara Lepchenko 7-5, 6-4. The Italian player immediately broke her opponent and confirms the break of advantage, going up 2-0. Two games in which each player held serve follow, then Schiavone had plenty of chances to break against Lepchenko, but the American player cancels them all and in the sixth game gains the counter-break, tying up the score to 3-3. Schiavone broke again in the ninth game and clinched an opportunity to serve for the first set, but is counter-broken again. Francesca, though, nicknamed “Leonessa” by the Italian press (“The female Lion”) demonstrates why she’s has that name and wins the first set 7-5.
In the second set, it continued to be a tightly fought encounter. Schiavone goes twice in advantage of a break of serve (2-1 and 4-3), but she required a third break to seal the final victory 7-5 6-4.
“It will be a really tough match. She’s really solid…in the last two years she grew a lot.” Schiavone said about facing Pavlyuchenkova in the final.
“The most important thing for me is to be healthy tomorrow…I’m enjoying, I feel the crowd love me so this is a big power for me, so I’m ready for tomorrow. Not now! Tomorrow.” She added.
Pavlyuchenkova currently leads Schiavone 4-3 in their head-to-head, but hasn’t played the Italian since 2014.
