News | WTA Tennis English

  • Posted: Jan 01, 1970

BOGOTA, Colombia – Italian veteran Francesca Schiavone needed barely over an hour to take down top seed Kiki Bertens and book her place in the Claro Open Colsanitas semifinals, 6-1, 6-4.

The 36-year-old Italian, who is playing in her last season of professional tennis after announcing her retirement plans earlier in the year, will cap off her final trip to Bogota with her first semifinal appearance at the tournament – and her first semifinal of 2017.

The semifinals seemed a long way off for Schiavone in the opening set, however, as she started off sluggish and struggled physically with lingering shoulder pains as she dropped her opening service game.

But the former French Open champion drew on all her experience to put it out of her mind and steamroll past a flat Bertens, who was playing her second match of the day after defeating fellow Dutch qualifier Cindy Burger in their rain delayed second round encounter.

Bertens’ normally powerful groundstrokes were missing their bite as she sprayed unforced errors and double faults to keep Schiavone in the match, dropping serve three times as the Italian snatched up six games in a row to comfortably wrap up the opening set.

The top seed put up a better fight in the second, finding her first serves to keep pace with Schiavone before the Italian came away with the crucial break early on to go up 2-1. Bertens was never able to get it back or put any pressure on the Schiavone serve as they stayed on serve to send the Italian through to her first semifinal of the year.

It won’t get any easier for Schiavone in the next round as she looks to reach her 19th career singles final; up next is the highest seed left in the draw, No.3 seed Johanna Larsson.

Larsson fought past a determined Sara Errani in a tight straights sets encounter to advance 7-5, 6-4 and take the final spot in the Claro Open Colsanitas semifinals.

More to follow…

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