Bencic beats Pavlyuchenkova to make St. Petersburg semifinal


3 photos
Save Story
Leer en español

Estimated read time: 2-3 minutes

This archived news story is available only for your personal, non-commercial use. Information in the story may be outdated or superseded by additional information. Reading or replaying the story in its archived form does not constitute a republication of the story.

ST. PETERSBURG, Russia (AP) — Top-seeded Belinda Bencic won a late-night battle with Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova to take the final spot in the semifinals at the St. Petersburg Ladies Trophy.

Over the course of a two-and-a-half-hour match which concluded after midnight, the Swiss world No. 11 ground down her fifth-seeded Russian opponent to win 6-7 (4), 6-4, 6-2.

While Bencic's serving was patchy, she made up for it with tenacity in rallies off her second serve, and was a constant threat in Pavlyuchenkova's service games, forcing 18 break points, of which 11 were converted.

Bencic's win sets up a semifinal against a fellow 18-year-old in Russia's Daria Kasatkina, who overcame the tenacious Dominika Cibulkova of Slovakia 4-6, 7-5, 6-3.

The other semifinal pits second-seeded Roberta Vinci of Italy against Ana Ivanovic, the Serbian fourth seed.

Vinci survived a scare from Timea Babos of Hungary to reach the semifinals. The Italian broke Babos when the latter was serving for the match in the deciding set, and bounced back from 4-2 down in the tiebreak to win 7-6 (3), 4-6, 7-6 (4).

Vinci struggled throughout the first and second sets, landing fewer than half of her first serves in each.

"She served so good, but today I played so-so. Especially at the beginning, I was so tight, so nervous," Vinci said in televised comments. "I stayed focused and I won a great match."

Vinci meets Ivanovic after the Serb beat Ukrainian qualifier Kateryna Kozlova 6-1, 7-5. Ivanovic limited Kozlova to just 10 points in the whole of a rapid first set but faced a tougher task when Kozlova broke her serve twice in the second.

"She is a great young player, and in the second set she started to play more powerful," Ivanovic said. "I tried to step up a bit, be more aggressive, hold my court position, and it worked well."

Copyright © The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Photos

Most recent National Sports stories

Related topics

TennisNational Sports
The Associated Press

    ARE YOU GAME?

    From first downs to buzzer beaters, get KSL.com’s top sports stories delivered to your inbox weekly.
    By subscribing, you acknowledge and agree to KSL.com's Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.

    KSL Weather Forecast