September 14, 2019 - Petra Martic has secured the fourth WTA final of her career!

HRT reports that Croatian tennis player Petra Martic, the 23rd best female tennis player in the world, has made it to the final of the premier WTA tournament in Zhengzhou, China, after overcoming France's Kristina Mladenovic (WTA - 49th) in the semifinal 6:0, 6:3 after just over an hour of play.

In the final, she will play against the Czech tennis player Karolina Pliskova, who beat Australian-Croatian Ajla Tomljanovic 6:3, 6:2 in the first semifinal of the day.

To reach the fourth WTA final of her career, Martic managed an extremely convincing performance against Mladenovic, whom she defeated for the fourth time in their fifth encounter. The Duce native never lost her serve and broke her French opponent four times.

Smooth sailing ?

Petra Martic claims her spot in the @ZhengzhouOpen Final by storming past Mladenovic, 6-0, 6-3 ? pic.twitter.com/Gq9oqcR8AJ

— WTA (@WTA) September 14, 2019

In the first set, which lasted only 22 minutes, Martic took the serve of the French tennis player three times. In the second set, Mladenovic offered stronger resistance, and the match was even until Martic took the 5:3 lead. After that, she quickly ended the match at her serve. 

Martic served three aces in the match and Mladenovic just one. Martic took serve of her rival four times, and never lost her own. Mladenovic made six double faults, while Petra Martic made none.

This will be the sixth match between Martic and Karolina Pliskova. Martic has been better than Pliskova four times so far, with the last time this year at Roland Garros.

To read more about sport in Croatia, follow TCN's dedicated page. 

September 13, 2019 - Croatian tennis player Petra Martic advanced to the semifinal of the WTA tournament in Zhengzhou, beating Belarusian Arina Sabalenka 7:5, 5:7, 6:4 in the quarterfinal after two hours and 41 minutes of play.

HRT reports that this was the second encounter between Martic and Sabalenkao, and revenge for Martic after losing to the Belarusian player at the start of the tournament in Cincinnati one month ago.

In the first set, Martic lost her break advantage twice, but when she took Sabalenka’s serve for the 6:5 lead for the third time, she managed to win the first set of the match without losing a point.

Martic had the first break in the second set as well, but Sabalenka turned the score to 4:2 in her favor. At 5:2 for Sabalenka, Martic was able to save three set points, equalized at 5:5, and had a break point for a 6:5 lead, which she, unfortunately, did not use. Martic eventually failed to win the tie-break, and Sabalenka used her ninth set point to level the score.

Until the 4:4 result in the third set, neither player had the chance to break. However, Martic stole Sabalenka’s serve and found herself in the situation to serve for the match. Sabalenka reached 15:40 but did not use either of her two break points, and Martic scored the last four points in the duel for the victory. 

In the semifinal, Martic will play against the winner of the match between France's Kristina Mladenovic and Ukraine's Elina Svitolina.

To read more about sport in Croatia, follow TCN’s dedicated page.