Sharapova outclasses Wozniacki in semi

World number one Nadal reaches men’s final in Rome.

ROME:

Former Wimbledon champion Maria Sharapova will play Australia’s Samantha Stosur in the Rome Masters final after she defeated world number one Caroline Wozniacki 7-5, 6-3 in a match littered with service breaks.

Sharapova displayed a performance of crisp power hitting to eventually prove too much for her Danish opponent. She broke Wozniacki early on but when she led 4-3 there were four breaks in a row until the Russian finally held serve to take the set 7-5.

The service struggles continued at the start of the second set as four of the first five games went against the server. That saw Wozniacki open up a 3-1 lead but Sharapova did not let her consolidate and reeled off the final five games.

Earlier, Stosur stormed into the final with a straight-sets 7-6, 6-0 victory over China’s Li Na. It was the 27-year-old’s third straight-sets win out of three played against a player ranked one place above her in the world.

Stosur also reached her first final since the 2010 French Open almost a year ago.

Nadal overwhelms Gasquet

A dominant Rafael Nadal broke Richard Gasquet’s resolve and eased into the men’s final with a 7-5, 6-1 victory over the 16th-seed.

The victory took the 24-year-old’s record at this tournament to 31 wins and just one loss as he aims for a sixth title in seven years in this event. Having suffered from a fever earlier in the week, Nadal showed no ill-effects as he secured a spot for himself in the final.



Published in The Express Tribune, May 15^th, 2011.