News | WTA Tennis English

  • Posted: Jan 01, 1970

BIEL/BIENNE, Switerzland – Top seed Barbora Strycova is into her second semifinal of the season after No.7 seed Julia Goerges was forced to retire one game into the third set of their quarterfinal at the Ladies Open Biel Bienne, with the Czech prevailing 4-6, 6-3, 1-0 (ret.). Strycova will face fellow Czech Marketa Vondrousova in Saturday’s semifinals.

The 31-year-old rallied from a set down with some gritty defending and resilience in the second set. After holding in a 15-minute game at 2-all in the second set, Strycova slowly grabbed the momentum back her way to take the second set.

Goerges, who had seen her forehand misfire regularly throughout the latter half of the second set, called the trainer after the second set and took a medical timeout to get her right arm massaged. Strycova won the first game after the changeover and the German was forced to call it a day, citing a right wrist injury.

“We had always tough matches against each other,” Strycova said. “It’s very tough to play against Julia because we know each other very well, we used to play doubles together, and we are going to play again a little bit. It’s never easy, but we both want to win.

“I’m happy that I won, but not in this way because it’s always very hard to see someone injured and have to walk off from the match.”

It was a bad luck ending to a great week for No.46 Goerges, who dominated much of the match against Strycova before succumbing to injury. The 28-year-old fired 18 winners to just 6 unforced errors in the first set, smothering Strycova with her heavy hitting despite the retirement, finished with 33 winners to 21 unforced errors. Strycova hit 8 winners to 11 unforced errors for the match.

Despite being besieged by Goerges’ offense, Strycova found a way to problem-solve the match, throwing in a good amount of variety with dropshots, slices, and the occasional serve and volley to keep the German uncomfortable.

“It feels nice,” Strycova said. “The court is very comfortable to play on, the ball is coming to you very nice. It took me some matches to get used to it but I feel good.”

Next up for Strycova is her 17-year-old compatriot Vondrousova.

“Another young gun from Czech! I saw her play here already and she’s playing very well,” Strycova said. “She’s playing from the qualifying so she has a lot of matches under her belt. It will be a tough one because she’s young and she wants to play the best tennis she can so I have to be ready so I have to play my best tennis as well.”

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