Update 11:40 pm. Andrea Petkovic blasted her way into the finals tonight, defeating fourth-seeded Frenchwoman Marion Bartoli in straight sets 6-4 6-2.
The German held serve to quickly take the first game, before Bartoli fought back hard to overtake her and set up a strong 4-1 lead.
When Petkovic broke Bartoli’s serve to snatch her second game, with it came the confidence and focus she needed to go on to win the next five consecutive games and take the set.
Going into the second set, the look on Petkovic’s face said it all. She was in the zone. Securing the first game with an ace, Petkovic snagged the second at the hands of a double fault from Bartoli, and the third when the Frenchwoman found the net.
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Bartoli fought hard as the set drew to a close, but it wasn’t enough. She buckled under pressure in the final game with a double fault and two unforced errors, handing Petkovic safe passage to the final.
Bartoli is the German’s sixth win over a top 20 player, with a number of those in recent months.
“I’m a diesel you know, I need some time before I start to get going,” Petkovic said after the game.
“I felt good, yeah. I felt comfortable on court … I was not moving perfectly in the beginning and Marion put a lot of pressure with her returns and I needed some time to get used to it,” she said.
“But then later I felt really well, I was moving well, I was hitting the ball well so yeah it was a good match.”
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Petkovic says she’s “really happy to see the improvements already” from her off-season preparations, and that physical training instils much value mentally also.
“I feel a lot calmer because I know I can get to almost every ball, I know it’s very tough to hit a winner against me, and that’s just boost my confidence,” she said.
“I lost maybe one or two serves in the whole tournament and I lost both my first serves against her, because in the court she’s putting a lot of pressure, a lot of visual pressure, and I needed some time as I said to get used to it.”
Another form of preparation for Petkovic is to study her opponents’ matches, as does her coach.
“We always watch the matches separately because when you watch it together sometimes you get too influenced by the other one … and you sort of forget to watch it by yourself,” she said.
“So I think it’s important … I think more comes out of it … and I think that players should be able to think for themselves because you’re on the court deciding yourself. You have to feel what’s going on on the court.”
That means Petkovic will have studied Czech Petra Kvitova in her semifinals match against Russia’s Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova tonight. The Czech won in a tight three-setter, 6-4 4-6 6-2.
This will be the fifth meeting for Kvitova and Petkovic. Head-to-head they’ve won twice each, with Petkovic winning the two most recent matches.
“Well I definitely want to have a better start than today [in the final],” she said.
“Because you know I was lucky that it was some two–three games that I got back into the game … sometimes if they go the other way you can be down a set and you start to think about it and start to be negative. But I think as long as I have a good attitude and my movement up I’m gonna have some good chances,” she said.
With the strong form and focus Petkovic has displayed so far at the Brisbane International, there’s no doubt her chances are up there. She certainly didn’t make it to the finals by pure luck.
It’s amazing to think that she may have never pursued a professional tennis career at all.
“Well my parents didn’t really want me to play tennis because my dad, he used to be a Davis Cup player for Yugoslavia back then. And you know he went through all this tennis stuff – through all the pressure, the people criticising – and we are quite the same, we are very sensitive and it got to him so he didn’t really want his little daughter to go through the same thing,” she said.
“So I had some trouble making the decision [to pursue professional tennis]. I finished my high school – in Germany we have 13 years – so I finished it with nineteen [years of age] which is quite late for a tennis player to start a tennis career.
“And I was like, ‘OK I’m gonna give it a try for two years if I don’t end up in the top 50 I’m gonna stop’. That was my aim.
“Then I had the injury – but that showed me actually that I really wanted to do it and to give it a shot and I felt like I had the abilities to compete with the top players, so it was like an awakening a little bit.”
But tennis isn’t the be-all or end-all for Petkovic, who says she’s learned to enjoy playing at such a high-pressure level.
“I know if something happens I go back to my study and I’m going to be fine as well. So it takes off some pressure – I don’t have to be a top tennis player but I want to be.”
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