PETE ZIEBRON in CINCINNATI
Svetlana Kuznetsova continues to win in Cincinnati. Pete Ziebron Images
Svetlana Kuznetsova defeated yet another seeded player at the Western & Southern Open, This time it was #1 seed Ash Barty of Australia 6-2 6-4 to advance to Sunday’s Final.
Kuznetsova needed a Wild Card for the Main Draw due to the fact that she has a ranking of world #153. In Cincinnati, she has defeated the following seeds: #11 Anastasija Sevastova, #8 Sloane Stephens, #3 Karolina Pliskova and #1 Ash Barty. In addition, she also defeated world #32 Dayana Yastremska in the second round where she saved two Match Points en route to the victory.
Against Barty, the former two-time major Champion Kuznetsova rallied after dropping the opening two games of the match to win eight straight games to take the opening set 6-2 and lead 2-0 in the second set.
Ash Barty elaborated on the run of eight games: "Today she got off to a pretty poor start, but then was able to flip the switch right away and get back into patterns she can control and she liked. Yeah, it was hard for me to get out of them, and I couldn't really hurt her much today."
In three of her service games in the second set, Kuznetsova won games at love as she lost just three points on serve in the set. Following the match, I asked Kuznetsova about this fact: “I’m not serving 100% at the moment because I got injured at the start of the tournament, so I had to figure out how I can push up for the serve so I don’t get hurt more. So I’m kind of changing my serve a little bit, but it looks like it’s working better.”
Kuznetsova will attempt to defeat yet another seeded player in the final against #16 seed Madison Keys of the United States.
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