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 Sara Errani of Italy returns the ball to Madison Brengle of the USA  Caroline Garcia of France reacts during her quarter final match against Andrea Petkovic of Germany France's Caroline Garcia when the pair meet in Friday's semi-final at the Dubai Tennis Championships. The Italian who lost the 2013 final at the Aviation Club to Petra Kvitova struggled on Thursday to rally past American Madison Brengle, earning a hard-fought 4-6, 6-1, 6-4 win after almost two and a half hours. The match was far from attractive, with the players converting on a combined 17 break points from 39 on offer. Garcia earned her place in the final four as she defeated Andrea Petkovic 6-3, 6-4 after losing both of her previous matches with the German. Petkovic had trouble on serve, firing 10 double-faults. Dubai earned a dubious record this week as the first WTA or ATP event to lose all eight seeds without any of them winning a match. Errani has to battle wind as well as an erratic, dangerous opponent in Brengle. "She did not miss a ball sometime," the 22nd-ranked Italian said. "It's not easy to play against her. In the beginning there was a lot of wind." Errani trailed 1-4 down in the third set but found a way to go through in the end. But for unknown reasons she called her coach to the sidelines, had a chat and promptly lost the next five games as Errani closed out the win. "Just to be in the semi-final for me is an amazing result. I'll try to play the next match, doing my best," Errani said. "It was difficult for me to play the ball, I could have lost easily, I just kept fighting." Garcia never let Petkovic get comfortable in their quarter-final. "You always have to fight and work hard against Andrea, she is big fighter, always trying to come back," the winner said. "It was very difficult conditions, very windy. Sometimes it was not very nice tennis, not very rhythmic, but you have to stay focused and, just keep your tactics." Popular Serb Ana Ivanovic was playing later against Czech Barbora Strycova while CoCo Vandeweghe was taking on Elina Svitolina. | |||||
Thursday, February 18, 2016
Errani, Garcia set up Dubai semi-final at depleted WTA event
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