By IANS
Kolkata : Mariya Koryttseva of Ukraine set up a semi-final clash with British girl Anne Keothavong as both sailed into the last four of Sunfeast Open Friday with straight set victories.
In the first match, Koryttseva beat Tatiana Poutchek of Belarus 6-4, 6-2 while Anne Keothavong upstaged Israel’s Tzipora Obziler 6-1, 6-3 in another match.
Poutchek broke the Ukranian in the very first game but in game no.4, Koryttseva unleashed her punishing forehand and never looked back.
The World No.164 made sure that Poutchek stays on the baseline and capitalised on her lack of movement to spring one forehand after the other. The talented Koryttseva, who packed off Bartoli-slayer Vania King Thursday, achieved breaks in the fourth, eighth and tenth games to clinch the first set 6-4.
Later, Poutchek admitted that she was not fully fit. “I have a medical problem. I found it difficult to serve under the lights and I was not moving well,” she said during the post match press conference.
Whatever resistance she had in the first set evaporated in the second as Koryttseva steamrolled her to achieve breaks in the second, fourth, sixth and eighth games to win in one hour and 33 minutes.
In the second quarterfinal match, Keothavong, who had beaten Obziler in their last meeting also, had her gameplan chalked out. She knew the Israelite was a good mover and hence finished off the points by coming to the net despite being a baseliner.
She broke the 34-year-old in the third and sixth games to clinch the first set 6-1.
In the second, the ex-Israeli armywoman tried to come back. But Keothavong with a solid service game won 80 percent of the points on first serves and Obziler failed to achieve the crucial break.
Keothavong broke the veteran in the all-important second game and held her nerves under pressure to reach the last four.