Top seed Karolina Pliskova beat Alja Tomljanovic 6-3 6-2 after 1 hour and 8 minutes to reach her fifth final this season at the Zhengzhou Open, a WTA Premier tournament. The Czech player will face Petra Martic, who cruised past Kristina Mladenovic 6-0 6-3 in the other semifinal reaching her maiden Premier final.
Former world number 1 Karolina Pliskova, who won three titles in Brisbane, Rome and Eastbourne scored her third win over Tomljanovic this year after beating the Australian player in the Brisbane quarter finals last January and in the Rome second round last May and now leads 4-1 in their five head-to-head matches.
Pliskova has reached the 27th final of her career and the third on Chinese soil. In her previous two finals in this country Pliskova finished runner-up to Venus Williams at the 2015 Zhuhai Elite Trophy and to Caroline Garcia in Tianjin in 2018.
Pliskova won 93 % of her first service points, hit six aces and dropped nine points on her serve. She hit 28 winners to 10 unforced errors. Tomljanovic produced 19 winners to 13 unforced errors.
Pliskova broke twice in the first and ninth games to win the opening set 6-3. The Czech player broke Tomljanovic’s first and last service games to seal the second set 6-2. She made her only three consecutive double faults of the match to face a break point, while she was serving at 4-2 40-15 in the second set. Pliskova saved the break point with un unreturnable first serve before sealing the win on her first match point with a forehand return winner.
In the second semifinal Petra Martic beat Kristina Mladenovic 6-0 6-3 scoring her fourth win against the French player. Earlier this year the Croatian player won her first title in Istanbul and reached the quarter final at Roland Garros. In both tournaments Martic had already beaten Mladenovic in the Istanbul quarter final (by the scoreline of 7-6 4-6 7-6 in the third longest in 2019) and in the French Open second round 6-2 6-1 in just 65 minutes).
In the opening set Martic came back from 0-30 down in the fourth game and from 15-40 down in the sixth game to break serve twice.
In the seventh game of the second set Martic held her serve with a forehand winner and an unreturnable serve after four deuces without facing any break points.
Martic broke serve for the first time in the eighth game of the second set after a volley error and a smash into the net. The Croatian player sealed the win on her first match point with her third ace of the match.
