Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships: Petra Kvitova Will Take On Belinda Bencic

The second seed, Petra Kvitova is through to the finals of the Middle Eastern tournament, after she played a dramatic three-set semifinal match against the Taiwanese professional tennis player, Hsieh Su-Wei. For the first time in six years, Kvitova is through to the finals at Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships. The fairytale week of Hsieh has been concluded by the World Number 4, Kvitova.

Hseih outdid the former World Number one, Karolina Pliskova in the quarterfinal match and in the last four she exhausted the two-time Wimbledon champion at Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships. For the 31-year-old Hseih, it was her first semifinal at Premier-level or higher and she was fantasying to add a WTA crown to her name. However, the 2013 Dubai champion, Kvitova’s adeptness has left the Taiwanese player’s dream unfulfilled.

“It was a tough one today, for sure. She really didn’t give me anything for free. It was a tough first set. I’m glad that I was able to come back in the second. I didn’t play great at the end of the first,” Kvitova said after her win. “I think I’m pleased with my kind of mental focus after losing the first set, that I was calmer when I came back and played from the beginning of the second set. I still kind of felt that I can do that somehow. I don’t know. It was something weird. It’s not really happening often to me, but I headed there, and that’s helped me a lot today to kind of feel that I can do that or I can battle to the third.” Kvitova presided 3-6, 6-2, 6-4 over Hseih.

The 28-year-old, Kvitova will be playing the final against the Swiss, Belinda Bencic who dethroned the reigning queen of Dubai, Elina Svitolina. Bencic saved six match points on her way to the quarterfinal against Simona Halep and she also outdid the World Number two tennis player, Halep. Svitolina happened to drop her very first set of the tournament against the Swiss. 

Svitolina and Bencic played a rollercoaster semifinal, the duo traded the break of serves in the final set and until the end, it was difficult to predict who would be the finalist. As Bencic squandered three match points in the final set, Svitolina pushed the entertaining semifinal into the tiebreaker. The dramatic match had elated the Dubai audience. Bencic defeated three top-ten WTA women this week and if she outdoes Kvitova in the finals she will launch herself back into the top 30 rankings on the WTA ladder. Previously the left-handed, Kvitova and Bencic met in the second round of the Australian Open 2019.