Samantha Stosur advances to French Open semifinals
PARIS -- After a quick exit at her last Grand Slam tournament, Samantha Stosur is very much in the mix again at the French Open.
Stosur, who followed her 2011 U.S. Open title with a first-round loss at the Australian Open in January, made the semifinals at Roland Garros with a 6-4, 6-1 victory Tuesday over No. 15 seed Dominika Cibulkova.
The sixth-seeded Aussie will play No. 21 Sara Errani of Italy, who made her first Grand Slam semifinal with a 6-3, 7-6 (2) victory over 10th-seeded Angelique Kerber.
Stosur's match against Cibulkova was pretty much drama free, save a minor blip in the second set when, trailing 1-0, she faced three break points at love-40. But she won 13 of the next 14 points to take control and wound up winning the match's last six games. Stosur made only four unforced errors in the second set.
"Today, in tough moments, she gave me so many good winners, so many lines, and it was just everything going her way," Cibulkova said.
Stosur was the French Open runner-up to Francesca Schiavone in 2010 and made the semifinals in 2009.
"The last few years have been very good to me in Paris," Stosur said. "I love playing in Paris and it doesn't get any better than this." Errani won her first career match in 29 tries against a top-10 player. The second set included eight total breaks, including twice by Errani when Kerber served for the set.
Playing in her 19th career major tournament, Errani beat two past French Open champions in her previous two matches: 2008's Ana Ivanovic and 2009's Svetlanta Kuznetsova.
Errani trails the series against Stosur 5-0, including a 6-3, 7-5 loss earlier this year on clay in Rome.
"If I'm here, it's because I'm playing good, so I want just to think about that and think about fighting and (doing) my best," Errani said. "How it goes, we will see." The men's quarterfinals followed the women's matches, with top-seeded Novak Djokovic playing No. 5 Jo-Wilfried Tsonga and No. 3 Roger Federer going against No. 9 Juan Martin del Potro.
