Sara Errani – Bad Gastein

Another fight, another victory. This time our Sarita Errani gets her 4th Singles semifinal of the season in Bad Gastein over Darya Kasatkina.

Although her qualyfier status, the young Ukrainian – WTA’s n.199 – displayed her full potential trying and succeeding in set the n.1 of Italy up: after a smooth start – aided by her coaching-on-court time in which she has been asked to go all-in from that moment on – Kasatkina flaunted a brilliant tennis in the second set, succeeding in pushing Sara back and keeping her as far as possible from the baseline.

She managed to tire her out – understable since she couldn’t take a break from quite a bit now – so that not even physioterapist’s back treatment could help the cause, and Sara had again to face a   third set.

Luckily for Errani, their gap in ranking, experience and competitiveness paid off when it was needed, so the young Ukranian could not help but dropping her racquet and raise the white flag to the greatness of our champion. Final score: 6-3, 3-6, 6-2.

“I am dead tired. The court was very slow in the beginning, plus I had that back bother so I called for treatment. She pushed a lot on the backhand that’s why I kept switching on forehand most of the times. She is still young and I think she has good potential, strikes well, finds nice angles and has also a terrific kick serve.”

Semifinals have been already scheduled for tomorrow: Sara will face her Fed Cup fellow compatriot  Karin Knapp – n.3 seed – as 2nd match on Centre Court. Aside from career rankings, match records favour the Alto-Adige native (3-1), even though Sara won their last meeting in 2014 on Paris indoor harcourts (6-4, 6-3).

“I struggled today, but I definitively played better than past rounds, so let’s say I am quite positive about tomorrow’s semifinal. It is going to be a quality match for sure, Karin (ndr. Knapp) is a strong player, it is going to be tough for both.”