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Romanian Continues Run at Rogers Cup With an Upset of Li Williams Survives And Will Face Upstart For Rogers Cup Title
(35 minutes later)
TORONTO — The unseeded Romanian Sorana Cirstea continued her strong play at the Rogers Cup on Saturday, upsetting fourth-seeded Li Na, 6-1, 7-6 (5), to advance to Sunday’s final. TORONTO — Top-ranked Serena Williams reached the final of the Rogers Cup after a tough 7-6 (3), 6-4 victory against fourth-ranked Agnieszka Radwanska on Saturday night.
Cirstea, the 27th-ranked player in the world, this week upset the former No. 1 players Jelena Jankovic and Caroline Wozniacki along with the defending Rogers Cup champion and sixth seed, Petra Kvitova. “I was just a little frustrated with myself,” Williams said. “I don’t think I was playing as aggressive as I needed to play. I let her play her game, which is what she wanted to do, but I wasn’t able to play my game as much.”
“Every single match this week is like, O.K., just a new day, new match,” Cirstea said. “Doesn’t matter who I beat the day before or what I’ve done.” Williams will face 27th-ranked Sorana Cirstea of Romania on Sunday. Williams is seeking her third win at the Canadian tour stop, having won in 2001 and in 2011.
She added: “I’m really excited because these are the moments you are working for. I’m very looking forward to tomorrow’s match. It’s going to be a very interesting final.” Williams, who has not lost a set at this week’s tournament, needed a tiebreaker in the first set against Radwanska and battled through stomach issues between sets.
Cirstea, 23, played with confidence in the first set as she broke twice, taking an early 5-1 lead. “I feel good,” she said. “I just had a little stomach issue. I’ll be fine. I’m already feeling a lot better.”
The 31-year-old Li, ranked fifth in the world, dominated the early portion of the second set, breaking for 3-1, then winning triple break point to hold serve at 4-1. However, Li, a former French Open champion from China, committed 41 unforced errors in the loss, including her sixth double fault, on match point. Cirstea had only 29 unforced errors. Radwanska, a 24-year-old from Poland, traded breaks with Williams twice in the first set. Radwanska led, 6-5, but Williams forced a tiebreaker, during which she hammered a cross-court winner for a 6-3 advantage. Williams, 31, then aced set point.
“Even if I was down, 4-1, I still had the belief and still tried to focus on each point,” Cirstea said. “I think this kind of mentality is really helping me to take the pressure a bit off and to be able to be aggressive and take charge.” “The tiebreak, I just tried to take advantage of my serve as well as her serve and just try to win was many points as I could in the tiebreak,” Williams said. “I don’t think I played my best.”
Li made it to the final of last year’s Rogers Cup in Montreal before losing to Kvitova. Williams, the tournament’s top seed, fell behind 3-1 in the second set but won five of the next six games en route to victory. She won a 10-minute game, pulling ahead by 5-4, and broke Radwanska, finishing the match in 1 hour 52 minutes.
Cirstea has only one WTA title on her résumé, a win at Tashkent in 2008. Earlier in the day, Cirstea, 23, continued her strong play at the tournament, upsetting fourth-seeded Li Na, 6-1, 7-6 (5), to advance.
“This is probably the biggest tournament so far, but I think it’s the start of something good,” Cirstea said. “I had a strong week in Stanford and Washington. I’m just very excited to keep these things going and just make out of this mentality a habit.” Cirstea this week upset the former No. 1 players Jelena Jankovic and Caroline Wozniacki along with the defending tournament champion and sixth seed, Petra Kvitova.
RAONIC WINS ALL-CANADIAN BATTLE Milos Raonic beat Vasek Pospisil in the first all-Canadian semifinal at the Rogers Cup in Montreal and will crack a top 10 ranking for the first time. “She plays really tough,” Williams said. “She hits really hard. She has a good serve. She moves well, so she’s definitely not an easy player to play. Last few months, she’s been really consistent, and she’s just a player that’s finally found herself."
Raonic, seeded 11th, beat the 71st-ranked Pospisil, 6-4, 1-6, 7-6 (4), and will make his biggest ATP rankings move Monday, when he will become the first Canadian in the top 10. RAONIC WINS ALL-CANADIAN BATTLE Milos Raonic beat his fellow Canadian Vasek Pospisil, 6-4, 1-6, 7-6 (4), to reach the Rogers Cup final in Montreal. Raonic, Canada’s top-ranked player, will face the winner of the second semifinal between the two-time defending champion Novak Djokovic and Rafael Nadal.
But first, he will take on the two-time defending champion, Novak Djokovic, or Rafael Nadal in Sunday’s final. Raonic, a 22-year-old from Thornhill, Ontario, will crack the top 10 in the next world rankings after reaching the final of a Masters series event. The last Canadian to win the event was Robert Bedard, who took the last of his three titles in 1958.
“I really don’t know what to say,” said Raonic, who won the first ATP semifinal between Canadians since Martin Wostenholme beat Andrew Sznajder in Rio de Janeiro 23 years ago. “They’re all very special, but I think the top-10 one stands out more just because it’s a goal that I set this year,” Raonic said. “It looked a little bit difficult after how I played recently, but to do it here in Montreal is a relief and it’s a happy feeling.”
“Breaking into the top 10 means so much,” he added. “I’m really happy at the moment.” On the final point of the third-set tiebreaker, the 11th-seeded Raonic stretched to get to Pospisil’s shot at the net, forcing his opponent to make a lunging volley that went into the net.
No pair of Canadians had ever done so well at the home event, with Raonic the first to reach the final since 1958. “I was winning most of the points from the baseline once the rallies were started,” said Pospisil, a 23-year-old from Vernon, British Columbia. “The tiebreak got away from me a little bit there at the end, a couple of loose points. But I went for it. No regrets. I didn’t want to lose the match playing defensively. I tried to go for it even with the nerves that there were. This time, it didn’t work out, but that’s the right way for me to go.” (AP)
He needed two and a quarter hours to claim the victory on his first match point. Two late errors from the wild card Pospisil in the tiebreaker — a double fault and a forehand long — gave Raonic the chance to seal it.
“Getting to this ranking was a big objective for me, but I still have a tough final to play,” said Raonic, who fired 14 aces.
Pospisil was competing in only his second semifinal of any kind at the ATP level after losing last month in Colombia.
Raonic reached the final in his 12th elite Masters 1000 event and is s 27-13 this season.
His breakthrough came three months after starting work with Ivan Ljubicic. (AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE)