[ad_1]
By Erik Gudris/Wednesday, January 22, 2014
Li Na entered her third Australian Open finals with a
straight sets win over Canada’s Eugenie Bouchard.
Photo Credit: Corleve
China’s Li Na used her experience and a
potent crosscourt backhand to reach her third career Australian
Open final.
Standing in her way of that was 19-year-old Eugenie
Bouchard of Canada. Bouchard impressed many with her
poise throughout the event.
But playing in her first ever Grand Slam semifinal seemed to
overwhelm Bouchard in the opening games. Li added to Bouchard’s
problems by starting off playing very clean tennis with few
unforced errors. Up 5-0, Li looked on the verge of closing out
the set without dropping a game.
Yet Bouchard finally managed to break Li to get on the board. A
few games later, Li closed out the set 6-2 with a swinging
forehand winner.
Bouchard settled into the match at the start of the second set
by keeping up with Li’s pace and power. After a long back and
forth game, Bouchard secured a 2-0 lead. But a poor service
game soon after from the Canadian handed the break right back.
Trading breaks of serve became the pattern as each tried to
grab hold of the set. Often it was Li, with several sharp
crosscourt backhand winners, who came out on top in the
rallies. Li surged ahead to 5-3 by winning eight out of nine
points at one stage.
Soon serving for the match at 5-4, Li appeared unnerved by some
noisy fans in the crowd. But she soon settled into the game and
reached her first match point.
With both women scrambling from all sides of the court, it was
Li who ended it with a final crosscourt backhand winner to seal
the 6-2, 6-4 win.
Li hit 35 winners to just 10 for Bouchard during the nearly 90
minute match. Bouchard’s key stat was only winning 18 percent
of her second serve points.
Li now contends for her second career Grand Slam title on
Saturday night. She will face the winner of the
Agnieszka Radwanska versus Dominika
Cibulkova meeting in the second women’s semifinals.
[ad_2]
Source link