DALLAS, Texas: Italy’s Roberta Vinci advanced to her first final of the season by overpowering Bojana Jovanovski 6-0, 6-0 at the WTA Tour’s Texas Open on Thursday.
The third seeded Vinci advanced to Friday’s final, where she will face second seed Jelena Jankovic who also won in straight sets, 7-5, 6-4 over Aussie Casey Dellacqua.
Vinci needed just 52 minutes to overwhelm Jovanovski as she improved her career record against the Serb to 3-0.
“I played well. She played so-so,” Vinci said. “But 6-0, 6-0 is not easy. You have to stay focused every point, every game.” Vinci posted her third career “double-bagel” victory and second against a Serb in one month. She beat former world number one Ana Ivanovic by the same score in Montreal two weeks ago. On Friday Vinci will be up against another former world No. 1 from Serbia when she takes on Jankovic. “I know it will be tough, but I have a chance to win tomorrow for sure,” Vinci said. “I will try my best. I’m so happy to be in my first final of the year.” Jankovic had to rally from a 40-0 deficit in the final game to eliminate southpaw Dellacqua.
“It was a battle out there. I think Casey played really well,” Jankovic said. “There were a lot of tough games and points. It’s never easy to play a left-handed player. It has been a long time since we played each other. I hung in there and stayed positive and made it in two sets.” Wozniacki advances but suffers knee injury. In New Haven, Connecticut, four-time defending champion Caroline Wozniacki advanced to the semi-finals of the WTA New Haven Open on Thursday but a slight right knee injury put a damper on the celebration. The Danish third seed, who is set to be the eighth seed in next week’s US Open, defeated Slovakia’s Dominika Cibulkova 6-2, 6-1 in the quarter-finals and remained unbeaten at New Haven, improving to 20-0. But Wozniacki felt a twinge in her right knee during the first game of the second set and called a trainer. She continued with the knee wrapped and won with ease, improving to 8-3 all-time against Cibulkova, but planned to have the knee examined before deciding if she would play on Friday. “You need to judge whether you can continue or you cannot,” Wozniacki said. “You need to judge whether it’s going to get worse or not.
“It’s all decisions you need to make yourself, decisions that are important because you don’t want to suffer long-term injury — doesn’t matter what tournament it is.” Wozniacki is scheduled to face Russian seventh seed Maria Kirilenko, who beat Olga Govortsova of Belarus 6-1, 6-2 in another quarterfinal Thursday. Other quarterfinals scheduled later sent Czech second seed Petra Kvitova against compatriot Lucie Safarova and Italy’s Sara Errani against France’s Marion Bartoli.
