With another very good match, Sara made it to the semifinals at Roland Garros!
She beat Angelique Kerber 6-3, 7-6. In the first set, Sara dominated with good baselineplay, and excellent variation whenever she had the chance. She broke Kerber in her first and last servicegame of the set, while she didn’t face a single breakpoint on her own serve. The second set was a completely different story. Kerber broke Sara’s serve no less than 4 times, but every time Sara broke back straight away. Kerber also served for the set twice, and even had two setpoints, which she didn’t convert. In the tiebreak, Sara played very strong and didn’t give Kerber another chance to take the match to a third set. If you want to read more about the match, Hannah Wilks wrote an excellent match analysis for Racquet Reaction. The Roland Garros website has posted highlights of the match.
After the match, Sara has dedicated her run at Roland Garros to the people in Emilia Romagna. This is Sara’s home regio in Italy, and in the last two weeks it has been heavily affected by a series of earthquake. Dozens of people have been killed and thousands have been left homeless. Sara also said it has been very important for her to have been part of the Italian Fed Cup team since 2008. She said she has learned a lot from her teammates, Francesca Schiavone, Flavia Pennetta and Roberta Vinci; to be professional, how to handle different situations and stress in difficult moments.
In the semifinal, Sara will play against reigning US Open champion Samantha Stosur. They have played 5 times previously, most recently two weeks ago in Rome, and Stosur has won all matches.
There are a lot of interviews from today on several sites. Before the match, ubitennis posted an interview with Sara’s brother Davide and with her coach and his brother, Pablo and Pedro Lozano. After the match, they posted interview with Sara, Davide, Pablo and Roberta Vinci. Federtennis posted video interviews with Sara and Italian national coach Corrado Barazzuti. On the Roland Garros website, you can watch an excerpt from Sara’s pressconference after the quarterfinal. They also posted a nice interview with Sara from earlier in the tournament. Of course there are also a lot of new pictures in the photogallery.
