Marketa Marches On
Marketa Vondrousova features in both singles and doubles semi-finals in the ITF World Tennis Tour event at The Shrewsbury Club tomorrow.
Czech Republic star Vondrousova, who reached the final of the 2019 French Open, will play top seed Anhelina Kalinina in the opening singles semi-final of the Budgen Motors W100 tournament. The second last four clash to decide the line up for Sunday’s final follows as Ana Konjuh plays Eva Lys. British players Katie Boulter, Eliz Maloney and Lily Miyazaki saw their interest in the tournament - the biggest indoor women’s tennis event staged in the UK since the 1990s - end with quarter-final defeats today.
Vondrousova impressively recovered from losing the opening set of an all-Czech singles quarter-final against qualifier Barbora Palicova to win 4-6, 6-4, 6-1.
"It was a great match,” said Vondrousova, this week’s eighth seed. "I think she played amazing. She had nothing to lose, so I think she was playing really well and I think we played a good level.”
This is just the second tournament Vondrousova, 23, has played since April after making her return at a W80 tournament in France last week.
Now she has singles and doubles semi-finals to look forward to in Shrewsbury: "I played also yesterday singles and doubles, and I’m just very happy that my wrist doesn’t hurt and I can play as many matches as I can,” said Vondrousova.
She added: "I’m very happy to get matches under my belt because I didn’t play for a long time. It’s good to have some matches to play, some good level.”
A silver medallist at last year’s Olympics, with a career-high world ranking of 14, Vondrousova said: "You have to get into matches, so I’m just very happy to have back-to-back matches and I’m just really enjoying that I can play again.”
Vondrousova will return to The Shrewsbury Club’s Centre Court to complete tomorrow’s schedule with her doubles partner Miriam Kolodziejova from the Czech Republic. They meet Nigina Abduraimova from Uzbekistan and Paula Kania-Chodun from Poland in the second doubles semi-final, with the winners progressing to face Jessika Ponchet and Renata Voracova in Sunday’s final.
Top seed Kalinina from Ukraine set up a last four singles clash against Vondrousova by ending the fine Shrewsbury run of British qualifier Maloney. Having won four matches, including an excellent victory over seventh seed Misaki Doi a day earlier, Maloney, currently a career-high 500 in the world rankings, was beaten 7-5, 6-4 by Kalinina, a player currently in the world’s top 50.
Boulter, who is in the Great Britain team for next week’s Billie Jean King Cup Finals in Glasgow, lost 6-4, 7-6 to Croatian Konjuh, who is ranked 155 having been as high as 20 earlier in her career. Konjuh will face German player Lys in the last four after she beat Miyazaki, the current British number eight, 6-0, 1-6, 6-0. Lys, currently ranked 126 in the world, has now beaten three British players in Shrewsbury having also got the better of Emily Appleton and Jodie Burrage earlier in the week.
Today’s final match, the opening doubles semi-final, resulted in victory for third seeds Ponchet from France and Voracova from the Czech Republic. They claimed victory in a third set 10-point tie-break as they beat Katarzyna Kawa from Poland and Jesika Maleckova from the Czech Republic 4-6, 6-2, 10-3.
Tomorrow’s semi-finals start at The Shrewsbury Club at 12 noon.