February 21, 2020 – No. 8 seed Petra Martic won the quarterfinal match against Anett Kontaveit at the Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships.
HRT and WTA report that Croatian tennis player Petra Martic advanced to the semifinal of the WTA tournament in Dubai, beating Estonian player Anett Kontaveit (WTA-24) – 7-6 (4), 6-1.
Martic (WTA-15) continued securing good results in Dubai, booking three wins without losing a set. Against Kontaveit, Petra won the first set, in which she was down 0-2, then saved a set point at 5-6, and in the tie-break, came back from 1-3.
In the second set, Martic was too strong for Kontaveit, taking the 3-0 lead and easily ended the match after an hour and 43 minutes of play.
Petra Martic advances to the @DDFTennis semifinals!
Defeats Kontaveit 7-6(4), 6-1. pic.twitter.com/7N5uQPC5yQ
— WTA (@WTA) February 20, 2020
This was the first time Martic and Kontaveit met.
“The season has just started. Basically, I haven’t played much. I was trying to find my rhythm the first few tournaments. It seems like it worked out here,” Petra said after the match.
“I think these conditions really suit my game well. The ball is bouncing really high. It’s great for my kick serve, for my spin ball. I don’t know why I didn’t play well before, but right now I’m just trying to really just enjoy this tournament.”
Martic will play in the semifinal against the 19th best player in the world, Kazakhstani Elena Rybakina, who is in fantastic form and just knocked out Australian Open winner Sofia Kenin and second-seed Czech player Karolina Plishkova in Dubai.
“I like those kind of different players, like some of big hitters, some of big servers, some are slicing around. It’s fun,” she assessed. “It’s going to be a nice challenge, I think. I hope I can cause some damage with my serve, as well. We’ll see who is going to do it better.”
Martic was a WTA finalist twice last season. Recall, she won the Istanbul Cup in April and lost to Karolina Pliskova in the final of Zhengzhou last autumn.
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