PETE ZIEBRON in FOUNTAIN HILLS / SCOTTSDALE
Brazilian Beatriz Haddad Maia advances to Sunday's Final. Pete Ziebron Images
Saturday's semifinals at the CopperWynd Women's Pro Challenge in Fountain Hills, Arizona started with absolutely gorgeous conditions - 80F sunny and cloudless skies with a light wind. The $50K event in its second year is managed by Cliff Drysdale Tennis and benefits ACEing Autism.
American Kayla Day, a 17-year old upstart from Santa Barbara, California marched into the semifinal with an 8 match winning streak. Day, the Champion last week at the $50K ITF Challenger in Macon, Georgia did not drop a set in her three matches in Fountain Hills and had won 16 of the last 17 sets she played.
Day's opponent in the first semifinal was Brazilian Beatriz Haddad Maia, a 20- year old from Sao Paulo who also did not drop a set in Fountain Hills heading into the match. Arriving into the semifinal, the Brazilian dispatched #1 seed Nicole Gibbs in the second round as well as #8 seed Barbara Haas in yesterday's quarterfinal.
Expectations are high for 17 year-old American Kayla Day. Pete Ziebron Images
Kayla Day won the toss and elected to serve, however before the match started, Day left the court to use the toilet, perhaps a strategic move that is used in each and every match by Venus Williams. Following the toilet break, Day held at 15 to take a 1-0 lead.
In fact, each player held serve comfortably in the first five games of the match. Maia would occasionally shuffle her feet as Day served in an obvious attempt to throw the young American off her service motion however the tactic yielded little to no success as Day managed to hold serve, despite the distractions. {Sitting courtside, the shuffling of the feet by Maia was indeed audible and credit to Day for staying mentally strong to block out the potential noise impediment.}
As Maia served at 2-3 in the opening set, she fell behind 30-40 as well as ad out but managed to hold serve to square the match at 3-3. Yet again, Maia noisily shuffled her feet as Day served and this time it may have had an impact as Day lost both points when the tactic was implemented. Sure enough, Maia broke on her first opportunity to take a 4-3 lead in the opening set.
Beatriz Haddad Maia brought a very powerful game on court today against a young American and it appeared at this juncture in the match that she would put an exclamation point on the first set and possibly the match as she served with new balls. However, Day had other ideas and broke back on her first opportunity at 30-40 to level the match at 4-4.
Maia would break right back and then serve out the opening set at love to win it 6-4. These two games would begin the run of seven consecutive games as Maia would race to a 5-0 lead in the second set and serve for the match. Day would continue to fight, breaking Maia at love but would be broken back at 30 as Beatriz Haddad Maia advanced to Sunday's Final with a 6-4 6-1 win in 81 minutes.
Kristie Ahn will attempt to win the biggest title of her career on Sunday. Pete Ziebron Images
Next, two Americans matched up in the second semifinal as #4 seed Jennifer Brady took on Kristie Ahn. Brady raced to a 6-2 opening set win and appeared to be in command of the match,
However, just as she did in yesterday's quarterfinal match against Russina Varvara Flink, Ahn played steady tennis and allowed her opponent to make the majority of the mistakes as she would eventually advance with a 2-6 6-4 6-4 win over her fellow American opponent. The players combined for 10 of 35 break points won in the 2 hour and 32 minute match, but quite honestly Kristie Ahn could care less as she will play for the biggest tournament win of her career on Sunday.
Kristie Ahn will play Beatriz Haddad Maia at 12 noon, followed by the doubles final, featuring Americans Samantha Crawford and Melanie Oudin vs. fellow Americans Taylor Townsend and Ingrid Neel.
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