Victoria Azarenka and Maria Sharapova both turned up the gears to pull through tricky semi finals
(Rank/Seed)
1/1 Azarenka battled through a tough 1st set before controlling the match against (10/9) Bartoli 64 62. Azarenka hit over 30 winners to just 19 unforced errors and survived Bartoli's vicious returns of serve by millimetres to move into her 1st China Open final
2/2 Sharapova upset the party in beating (8/7) Li 64 60. The 1st set was a real battle, with Sharapova hitting 3 double faults to fall behind 1-3. However, as soon as Sharapova came back to edge the 1st set, Li's resolve faded and not even the capacity crowd could restore her faith. Sharapova cruised into her 1st China Open final
Azarenka leads Sharapova 6-4 in their head to head. She's won 3 of their 4 matches this year (all 3 on hard courts) and has won all 4 finals they've contested against each other, all on hard courts. Sharapova has won at least one set to love in her last 3 matches though and has beaten Azarenka in Beijing back in 2009. Judging on their recent US Open clash, I'm going to predict that Azarenka will edge this one, maybe in 3 sets!
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