Caroline Garcia brilliantly recovered from a first-set bagel and then a 1-3 deficit in the third set against Caroline Wozniacki to keep her hopes of a semifinal qualification alive and then the subsequent loss of Simona Halep to Elina Svitolina in the Red Group pushed the Frenchwoman into the last four of the 2017 BNP Paribas WTA Finals Singapore presented by SC Global.
The sixth-seeded Wozniacki kicked off the first Friday’s match with a dominant display, as Garcia won just seven points in the first set, getting bageled by the brilliant Dane who has recorded a bagel set in each of her three round-robin matches. Garcia served at 71%, compared to Wozniacki’s 57%, but in all the other departments Wozniacki was way better.
Just as it seemed that Wozniacki would earn another emphatic victory, after storming past Simona Halep 6-0 6-2 and Elina Svitolina 6-2 6-0 in her previous Red Group matches, the eighth-seeded Garcia started turning things around midway through the second set, building a 5-2 double break lead against the out-of-focus Wozniacki and soon afterwards capitalized on it.
The decider was a tight battle in which Wozniacki had a slight edge until the tenth game, and she even served for the match, but the fighting Garcia broke back to level to 5-5 and then saved three consecutive break points in the following game to eventually stun Wozniacki 0-6 6-3 7-5.
The next match determined Garcia’s fate and the outcome was in her favor, as Elina Svitolina beat top seed Simona Halep 6-3 6-4, ensuring that Garcia wins the Red Group. This means that Garcia will face the White Group’s No.2 Venus Williams in the semifinals, while the White Group’s leader Karolina Pliskova, who can overtake Halep at the top of the WTA rankings with the Singapore title, will play Wozniacki.
Congratulations to Caroline Garcia on making the semis, she certainly deserves it. 🙂
Caro is a future world no.1 for me! She has the talent for it!