Daria Kasatkina beat Irina Camelia Begu 6-2 6-3 in the semifinal of the Kremlin Cup in Moscow to take her fourth win in five head-to-head matches against the Romanian player. By reaching the final in the Moscow tournament the young Russian player has improved the best result of her career at this tournament, where she played the semifinal in 2015 as a qualifier, but lost to Anastasya Pavlyuchenkova. Kasatkina has reached the final without dropping a set against Pavlyuchenkova, Katerina Siniakova and Aljaksandra Sasnovich earlier this week.
Both players traded breaks early in the first set. Kasatkina converted her fifth break point in a 10-minute fifth game and reeled off four consecutive games to claim the first set after 41 minutes. Begu received treatment on her right shoulder during the break between the two sets. Kastakina got an immediate break. The next games were marked by four consecutive breaks. Begu was the hold serve but Kasatkina broke serve to love in the seventh game. The home player sealed the win with another break in the final game.
Kasatkina will play her second final this year after winning the Charleston title after beating Jelena Ostapenko in the final in the first match title between two teenage players since Linz in 2009.
The young German player will take on number 7 seed Julia Goerges, who battled past 20-year-old Natalya Vikhlyantseva 6-2 2-6 7-5. Goerges hit 34 winners including 8 aces.
Goerges got an early break in the first game of the match with a forehand winner. As Vikhlyantseva was serving at 2-4, she made a forehand error before calling for the trainer to receive treatment on her right wrist. As the match resumed, the Russian player dropped her serve. Goerges held her serve to close out the first set 6-2, when Vikhlyantseva hit a backhand service return into the net.
Vikhlyantseva turned around the match at the start of the second set breaking serve at 1-0. The home player sealed the second set, when Goerges made two consecutive forehand errors as she was serving at 2-5.
Goerges did not drop a point in her first three service games and won 14 consecutive points on her serve at the start of the third set. The German player forced an error from Vikhlyantseva at 3-3 to get the first break of the decider. She won 16 of the last 17 points and served for the match at 5-4, but Vikhlyantseva earned a break point. She converted it to draw level to 5-5. Goerges bounced back by breaking at love earning a second chance to serve for a spot in the final. She closed out the set with a love hold thanks to two aces.
