The semi finals were both intense battles between players who have experienced a marked resurgence of form this week in Tokyo.
(Rank/Seed)
9/5 Kerber battled past close friend (8/4) Wozniacki 64 76(5) to reach her 1st Tokyo final. In general, Kerber was the aggressor as she had been in the quarter finals but neither player thoroughly imposed themselves on the serve or return. Kerber saw a 5-1 first set lead become 5-4 and then came from 2-4 down in the second. Wozniacki saved 3 match points from 2-6 down in the tiebreak before succumbing to the German for a 4th time in 7 meetings. Kerber is in only her 2nd final of the year as she looks for a first Premier 5 title!
11/7 Kvitova worked for over 2 hours to edge a tenacious (63/-) Venus Williams 36 63 76(2) for a 2nd time in 3 meetings and reach a 1st Tokyo final. The match was intense and filled with phenomenal serving and fierce power. For the most part, Venus had the slightly better numbers, hitting 34 winners to just 27 unforced errors compared to Kvitova's 32:27 ratio, whilst both players were only broken twice. The third set saw both women fail to capitalise on break points as both players remained unbroken, but Kvitova hit a purple patch towards the end as she held her last two service games to love to stay in the match then raced to a 6-0 lead in the tiebreak. It's great to see Venus fit again though, backing up long matches well and serving like the good old days (she hit 9 aces during the match). Kvitova is in her 4th final of the year as she looks for her 2nd title of the year.
Kvitova has won 10 of her previous 14 finals, including several huge titles and has been serving incredibly all week. Kerber in contrast has won only 2 of 6 finals, but has had a breakthrough week with her first two top 10 wins of the year under her belt. Kerber edges the head to head 2-1, including their only hard court meeting (Cincinnati 2012) (wtatourcincinnati.blogspot.co.uk) but they've never met in a final. As Kvitova plays so well in finals, I feel she will win the title.
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