Third seed Agnieszka Radwanska recorded quite a confident victory over eighth seed Petra Kvitova and became the first player to reach the semifinals of the 2016 BNP Paribas Open.
Wearing her new Lotto Spring Diamond Dress, Radwanska raced through the first set after quickly establishing a 5-1 lead, helped by Kvitova’s numerous errors. At the end of the set, Kvitova had 22 unforced errors, opposed to 11 winners, while Radwanska’s numbers were much cleaner, just four unforced errors, albeit to modest three winners.
The second set was way more competitive and basically all the way till its finishing stage Kvitova had the upper hand, always slightly leading and forcing Radwanska to catch up. However, Kvitova’s game wasn’t really a concrete wall and Radwanska pushed through, came back from 5-2 down to 5-all and then won the tiebreak, greatly assisted by the net which was miraculously on her side on three important points during the tiebreak. Final score: 6-2 7-6(3).
Kvitova made seven double faults and her number of unforced errors was 41 at the end of the match, while Radwanska had just one double fault and a total of 15 unforced errors.
Next up for the Pole will be the winner of the quarterfinal between top seed Serena Williams and fifth seed Simona Halep.