It took just 67 minutes for Kiki Bertens to book her place in the Madrid Open final with a comprehensive 6-2 6-2 victory over 7th seed Caroline Garcia of France.
Kiki Bertens (zimbio.com)
It has been a breakthrough week for the 26 year old Dutch player, ranked 20, having already beaten world No.2 Caroline Wozniacki. Today, she was simply more solid off the ground against an erratic Garcia and took full advantage of the opportunities presented to her.
Bertens broke the Garcia serve in the third game of the opening set on her third break point when the French woman sent her two handed backhand drive wide, and achieved a double break insurance to go 5-2 ahead when her opponent sprayed her forehand wide. She closed out the set on serve in the next game with ease when Garcia’s tame forehand drop shot attempt found the net.
With the 31 minute opening set under her belt, the Dutch woman never relinquished her dominance. She broke Garcia in the third game and again in the fifth game of the second set to sail to victory and a chance to win the Madrid Open title.
“I’m really happy with the way I played, I think maybe it was not great tennis that people want to see with a lot of winners”, Bertens said. “But Caroline is a great player and she likes when the ball comes up to the hips, and I was trying to play as many different balls as I could, and I think I did that pretty well.”
Bertens said her win against the more aggressive ball striker Maria Sharapova in the previous round aided her against Garcia today
“I think that helped me a lot. I was struggling a lot in the first set yesterday and I was trying to change my game and that helped me today from the beginning. I was trying to put in the heavier ball, some slices, just grinding out there and trying to put as many balls as possible back into the court and that’s what I did really well today.”
Looking ahead to the final tomorow against either Petra Kvitova or Karolina Pliskova, Bertens knows that she is going in as the underdog against either Czech player.
“Well I think it’s still 50/50 chance”, she said laughing. “I’m in the final tomorrow but it’s going to be really, really tough. They are both great players; I’m going to watch the match tonight and I’m going to go out there tomorrow and try to play my game again and we will see tomorrow night.”
“Both are tough players I must say and for me it doesn’t matter. I’m just really happy to be in this final and whoever it’s going to be, we are going to make a good game plan and hopefully I can play a good match tomorrow.”
“Right before this match I was really nervous, another opportunity. Every day I’m trying the best I can and that also keeps me calm. After the first set I calmed down a bit, and I really liked that today, and right now I’m really happy. Happy about my performance all week and I’m just trying to go out there tomorrow and do the same and then we will see. But right now I’m just enjoying it.”
Garcia said she came into the match with a game plan, but ultimately she was unable to execute it effectively.
“I tried to be more aggressive and focus more on her backhand, but she played very well and used the high ball very well and I couldn’t do anything today about it, I tried different things but it didn’t work”, Garcia said. “Of course I’m frustrated, my performance today was not great. But, I mean, she had her game plan and it worked well.”
“I had my game plan, but it was not working in the beginning. She was feeling the ball well and doing her high ball very well. Sometimes when I had the opportunity and was doing better in the rallies, she was just doing these high balls and it was like years ago in the juniors.”
Despite having played a good tournament to reach the last 4, Garcia, ranked 7, could not take any positives from it after her below par display.
“For now I don’t see a lot of positives, I’m just really disappointed about my performance and right now it’s difficult”, she said.
