Fresh off her Osaka title last week, Samantha Stosur eliminated fellow Grand Slam champion Svetlana Kuznetsova in the semifinals of the $795,707 Kremlin Cup in Moscow and extended her fall winning streak to nine matches. Awaiting the seventh-seeded Australian in the final will be Romania’s Simona Halep, who is 1-3 against Stosur, but that one victory came in their sole this year’s meeting, in Cincinnati.
Regarding their semifinal matches, Stosur recorded a 6-2 6-4 victory over the eighth-seeded Kuznetsova, who won just six of 23 points on her own serve in the first set, not holding once. In the second set, Stosur ran off to a 5-1 lead, but needed four more games to finish the match. As for the fifth-seeded Halep, she had a 4-0 lead in both sets against Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova en route to a 6-2 6-1 victory.
Halep has four WTA titles to her name and all the four she clinched this season. Actually, in 2013 Halep holds a perfect 4-0 record in WTA finals. We’ll see if she will keep it that way against last year’s Moscow runner-up Stosur. (photos: © Neal Trousdale)
Sam is finishing 2013 in some style. Let’s hope she keeps this form next year.
It is good to see Sam doing well finally. Although I wanted Sveta to win, but a good win for Stosur. Halep is on fire again. Should be a good match.