World No.20 Caroline Garcia of France didn’t let qualifier Maria Sakkari win her eighth match in a row, without hesitation dispatching the Greek 6-3 6-2 and making the final of the Dongfeng Motor Wuhan Open.
Playing the first WTA semifinal of her career, the world No.80 Sakkari broke Garcia’s serve to open the encounter, but the Frenchwoman struck back right away to level at 1-1 and in the sixth game recorded another significant break of serve that helped her build a lead her opponent couldn’t recover from. The second set started with three breaks, initiated by Garcia, who later recorded another one to go up 4-1 and peacefully served out the match at love three games later.
Between Garcia and her fourth WTA singles title will be Ashleigh Barty, who had no trouble eliminating eighth seed Jelena Ostapenko in the first semifinal on Friday. It will be the first professional meeting between Garcia and Barty, although they did face each other in junior competition.
Bravo Caro! She makes us French proud , unlike Mladenovich ….
Garcia is consistently playing well now. She can overtake Kiki with her good performance in China this week.