• Home
• /
• Tennis

Petkovic, Kvitova reach Brisbane final

Germany’s Andrea Petkovic played one of the matches of her career to overpower Frenchwoman Marion Bartoli 6-4, 6-2 to reach the final of the Brisbane International here Friday.

She will take on practice partner Petra Kvitova in Saturday’s final following the Czech player’s 6-4, 4-6, 6-2 win over fifth seeded Russian Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova.

Petkovic, who has been in scintillating form this week, will go into the final as a warm favourite after not dropping a set on her way to the final.

Against Bartoli she used her superb athleticism combined with some booming groundstrokes to absorb everything the fourth seed could throw at her to reach the third WTA final of her career.

Bartoli started well but once the 23-year-old Petkovic found her rhythm midway through the first set, Bartoli simply had no answers.

“I’m a diesel, I need time to get going, so I wasn’t moving perfectly in the beginning,” she said.

“Marion put a lot of pressure on with her returns and I needed some time to get used to that.

“But later I felt really good, I was moving well, I was hitting the ball well.”

Bartoli had opened with all guns blazing, quickly breaking Petkovic twice as she raced to a 4-1 lead.

But the German eventually found her range and was able to combat the early striking of her opponent.

Petkovic clawed her way back with two breaks to even things up at 4-4, held her serve to move ahead then broke Bartoli to wrap up the first set in 45 minutes.

She started the second the way she finished the first and won the first three games before Bartoli eventually held her serve to stop the rot.

But Petkovic was not to be denied and despite faltering when serving for the match at 5-1, she regained her composure to break straight back and take the semi-final in one hour, 17 minutes.

“It’s just one of those days when your opponent plays very well and on my side I was missing a little bit — it happens,” Bartoli said.

“You just have to learn from it and go into your next match and try again.”

Kvitova, 20, took almost two hours to see off Pavlyuchenkova in an absorbing second semi-final.

In a repeat of the first semi-final, Kvitova found herself 4-1 down in the first set before recovering to win the next five games in a row.

She started slowly in the second but this time could not pull it back and Pavlyuchenkova was able to level proceedings.

But Kvitova appeared much fresher in the third and finished stronger than her 19-year-old opponent.

“I felt very good mentally at the start of the third set and I didn’t have any nerves,” Kvitova said.

“I don’t know if Anastasia was tired but it was good for me.”

She said she was looking forward to taking on Petkovic for the title.

“We practised together before the start of the tournament and we know each other well,” she said. “We’ve played before and we are two-two, so it will be tough.”