Stosur ousts Zvonareva to reach semis

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Stosur ousts Zvonareva to reach semis

World number ten Samantha Stosur has made an outstanding progress at the $220,000 English event when she ousted top seed Vera Zvonareva after surviving an early scare. The 27-year-old Aussie edged the third ranked Russian 4-6, 7-6, 6-4 to set her fourth meeting with Marion Bartoli.

Stosur conceded the first set after losing a precious service amid the opener. The second set found the same Aussie pushing the opponent towards a breaker she finally won at four. As for the decider, it saw Samantha power through to a two-game lead she converted into a crucial win, her seventh against the 26-year-old. Zvonareva’s most recent victory against the two-title player dates from the 2004 Wimbledon Grand Slam. Previously to that, Vera, who was following a precious win against newly-returned Serena Williams, had won the first meeting at the 2004 Fed Cup.

On the other side, Stosur had previously defeated her at this term’s Stuttgart tournament. The Aussie will next meet Marion Bartoli who has made an easy progress after this year’s Miami Masters and Marbella champion Victoria Azarenka was forced to pull out due to medical problems at 6-2, 2-0 down. Samantha leads the head to head series with the French 2-1, having last defeated her at the 2010 Stuttgart tournament. Bartoli’s only win comes from the 2009 Stanford event.

Previous to the quarter finals, the Australian had eased past both Nadia Petrova in the first term and Bojana Jovanovski in the second one respectively. As for the French, Marion has bagged a three-set win over Lucie Safarova and straight-set one against Maria Jose Martinez respectively.

Concerning the second half of the table, Daniel Hantuchova stunned Venus Williams after losing the second set in one of the tightest quarter finals. The Slovak, winner in Pattaya City this season, edged the American 6-2, 5-7, 6-2 to set her second meeting with the world number eight Petra Kvitova, winner in Brisbane, Paris and Madrid. The Czech managed from a very big scare after she lost the opener 1-6 against Agnieszka Radwanska who had threatened at one point with a win.

Said Hantuchova: “I was not thinking about our other matches at all. I was just focusing on my game today. I had a good win yesterday and I wanted to build on that. But I still feel there is a lot of room to improve. I’m not where I want to be yet, but I feel like I’m on the right way, which is pretty exciting for me.”

Kvitova will meet Hantuchova for the second time, the only victory belonging to the eighth seed who beat the Slovak at this year’s Fed Cup event. Previously to the quarter finals win, Kvitova had ousted Anastasija Sevastova in three sets and Ekaterina Makarova, while Hantuchova had upset Jie Zheng in the opener and the French Open champion Li Na in the next term.

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