Petra Martić will fight for her first WTA title in her third attempt.
Croatian tennis player Petra Martić will play in the final of the WTA tournament in Istanbul after her Russian opponent Margarita Gasparyan retired in the first game of the second set in the semi-final. Petra won the first set 6-1, reports HRT on April 27, 2019.
What can you do about a shot like this from Petra Martic?#istanbulcup pic.twitter.com/BIIPfYdf9L
— WTA (@WTA) April 27, 2019
Martić started the match by losing her service but managed to win six games in a row, completely overcoming the 72nd best player in the world in the duel. Petra won the first set in 45 minutes.
In the second set, Gasparyan was forced to retire after only two points.
Petra Martic is through to the @istanbul_cup final after Gasparyan retires in the first game of the second set. pic.twitter.com/6L3AC5ch5e
— WTA (@WTA) April 27, 2019
Petra has thus advanced to the third WTA final of her career. So far, she has lost in the final of Kuala Lumpur in 2012, and last year in Bucharest. Our Croatian tennis star will fight for the title in her third attempt against 19-year-old Czech player Markéta Vondroušová, the 46th best tennis player in the world. Vondroušová has yet to lose a set this week. Martić and Vondroušová have faced one another on three occasions so far - the last time in the second round of this year's Australian Open. In all three duels, Martić has celebrated.
The WTA Istanbul tournament is played on clay courts and has a prize pool of $250,000. The final will be played on Sunday at 16:00.
In other news, Donna Vekić will long remember the quarter-final match of this year's WTA tournament in Stuttgart, where Croatia’s best female player fought against the best tennis player in the world, Naomi Osaka, and had a massive advantage of 5:1 in the decisive set. However, after an enormous turnaround, Osaka found the way to victory and advanced to the semi-final.
Oliver Marach and Mate Pavić finished this week's ATP 500 Series tournament in Barcelona. In the quarter-final, the Austrian-Croatian duo lost to South African Raven Klaasen and Britain Joe Salisbury - 7:6 (8), 7:6 (4).
The crisis for Marin Čilić continued this week, and not even his performance at the 250 Series ATP tournament in Budapest could bring better news for Croatia’s best male player. Marin reached his fourth consecutive defeat, and this time, it was Uruguayan player Pablo Cuevas (ATP-73) to knock out Čilić in the second round of the tournament (Marin was the first-seed and was free at the start of the competition). Cuevas celebrated after three hours and 12 minutes of play - 5:7, 7:6 (6), 7:6 (3).
After Marin Čilić, Borna Ćorić lost to Serbian tennis player Filip Krajinović (ATP-105) in two sets - 6:4, 7:5 .
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