DUBAI, UNITED ARAB EMIRATES – Former Wimbledon champion Petra Kvitova overpowered Caroline Wozniacki 6-3, 6-4 on Friday to reach the final of the Dubai Championships.
She will next play Sara Errani of Italy, who defeated her doubles partner Roberta Vinci 6-3, 6-3.
“She has a good forehand with a big spin and quite fast on the backhand,” Kvitova said of Errani. “I think that it will be a tough match tomorrow.”
Kvitova broke Wozniacki twice in both sets, including in the Dane’s last service game in the second.
“I didn’t feel like I had many chances,” Wozniacki said. “She just went for every shot and hit it deep and I came under pressure straight away.”
Wozniacki converted just one of her five break points, and won only 54 percent of points on her first serve, compared to 70 percent for Kvitova.
The Czech said she is feeling much better than at the same point last season, when she was struggling with injuries. She has a chance to move up to No. 7 in the rankings if she wins the tournament.
Errani and Vinci are the world’s top-ranked doubles pair and good friends off the court, but put that aside on Friday. Both players struggled to hold serve in a match with a total of 11 breaks, with Errani improving her head-to-head record to 5-2 against Vinci.
“It’s very tough because we know each other very well,” Errani said. “It’s tough to play against one person and know what you’re going to do in every shot.”
Errani reached the final of the Open GDF Suez this month but lost to unseeded Mona Barthel of Germany.
Nishikori makes semis
AP
Top-seeded Marin Cilic lost in straight sets to Kei Nishikori in the quarterfinals Friday of the U.S. National Indoor Tennis Championships.
Nishikori’s 6-2, 6-2 victory denied Cilic an opportunity to win back-to-back ATP World Tour titles. Cilic claimed his ninth career title two weeks ago in Zagreb, and had won nine of 11 matches this year.
Australia’s Marinko Matosevic also advanced, winning 6-7 (6-8), 6-3, 6-4 over No. 7 seed Alexandr Dolgopolov.
Cilic’s loss left the tournament without any of its top four seeds in the semifinals. Second seed Milos Raonic, third seed John Isner and fourth seed Sam Querrey were eliminated by the second round.
Nishikori, the fifth seed, reached his second semifinal of the year. He opened the year by reaching the same round in Brisbane.
Nishikori played nearly flawless after breaking Cilic to go up 3-2 in the first set. He broke Cilic twice in the second set to take a 4-1 lead and did not face a break point. Nishikori smashed a forehand winner on match point to advance.
In women’s play, Marina Erakovic of New Zealand defeated Stefanie Voegele of Switzerland, 6-2, 6-4 to return to the finals of the U.S. National Indoor Championships.
Erakovic, the world’s 71st ranked player, will play German Sabine Lisicki on Saturday for the championship. Lisicki, ranked 40th, beat No. 7 seed Magdalena Rybarikova of Slovakia, 7-5, 7-5.
Erakovic is seeking the first WTA title of her career after reaching two finals, last year in Memphis and 2011 in Quebec.
Lisicki, the No. 3 seed, is playing in Memphis for the first time since 2009 when she reached the quarterfinals.
The Erakovic-Lisicki match will mark the final women’s tournament held in Memphis. The event, which moved to Memphis in 2002, is relocating to Rio de Janeiro in 2013.
Tsonga outlasts Tomic
AP
Australia’s Bernard Tomic squandered five match points as he suffered a 4-6, 6-3, 7-6 (12-10) defeat to French third seed Jo-Wilfried Tsonga in the quarterfinals of the Marseille Open.
Tsonga will be playing his first semifinal of 2013 when he meets French compatriot Gilles Simon for a place in the final.
Simon beat second-seeded Argentine Juan Martin Del Potro, last weekend’s Rotterdam champion, who needed treatment on a thigh injury, 6-4, 6-3 in his quarterfinal.
“I felt I was playing better than him, but there were some holes in my game,” said Tsonga after his match against 20-year-old Tomic, the world No. 46.
“I am happy to get through because it was very, very tense.”
Earlier Friday, Russian qualifier Dmitry Tursunov reached the last four with a 7-6 (9-7), 1-6, 7-5 victory over Gilles Muller, the big-serving player from Luxembourg.
Tursunov will face top-seeded Czech Tomas Berdych, who beat Polish seventh seed Jerzy Janowicz 6-3, 6-7 (0-7), 6-3, for a place in the final.
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