By Matt Hursh Photo Credit: Steve Zhang
Friday’s quarterfinal play at the Citi Open produced other entertaining day of tennis for fans in College Park, Maryland, headlined by the dramatic marathon between third seeded Tamira Paszek and Stephanie Dubois, the World No. 117.
Dubois jumped out to an early lead by converting her only break point opportunity of the first set, which proved to be the difference as the Canadian took the initial set 7-5.
The second set produced five breaks of serve, but Paszek played opportunistic tennis to persevere and level the match with a 6-4 victory.
Even more breaks of serve came in the third set, as both players lost serve in five of their six service games. Paszek twice served for the match up 5-4 and 6-5 and even held match points in the third set, but she couldn’t put away the 24-year-old Canadian.
With momentum in Dubois’ favor going into the tiebreaker, she promptly captured the breaker’s first mini-break to go up 2-1. However, Paszek rallied to take the next six points, ending one of the more memorable matches of the WTA season at 5-7, 6-4, 7-6 (2) in favor of the Austrain.
After the three hour and 45 minute victory, Paszek will have a semifinal match to play on Saturday against top seeded Shahar Peer. Peer advanced into the semis in just over an hour 6-1, 6-2 win over Alberta Brianti on Friday. The World No. 24 dominated the eighth seeded Italian, breaking serve in four of seven return games and holding without fail.
Despite her high ranking, the Israeli will be making her first semifinal appearance of 2011.
In other quarterfinal action, American Irina Falconi completed her deepest tournament run of the season with a 6-4, 6-3 win over Virginie Razzano. Falconi is ranked No. 102, and her impressive results in Maryland will almost certainly vault her into the top 100.
Her semifinal opponent will be second ranked Nadia Petrova, who ousted 19-year-old Serb Bojana Jovanovski 7-6 (4), 7-5 in Friday's late match. Both Falconi and Petrova will be playing in their first WTA semifinal of the year.
The semifinal matches are scheduled for Saturday in Maryland.