Mona Barthel reached her first final of 2014 with a gutsy three set victory over Silvia Soler-Espinosa, 6-2 4-6 7-5 in Bastad.  I’ve watched many Mona matches this year and they almost always end in disappointment for Mona fans.  This time round, the German world number 61 held her nerves and produced some surprisingly positive tennis at the end to win.  It wasn’t a high quality match, but it was Barthel’s most rewarding win of the year for the way she was able to close the match out.  She faced scoreboard pressure serving at *4-5 in the decider but held to love, then broke from 30-0 in the next game winning four straight points (with two cracking winners) and then held to 15 with some solid serving.  There have been a number of heartbreaking losses this year for Mona; losing to Jelena Jankovic in Stuttgart (from four match points up) and Pauline Parmentier in Paris (served for the match) are the two that really resonate with me.  As a Mona fan, i’m really delighted to see her on the happy side of one of these really tight matches.

I expected more from Soler-Espinosa in this match, who has had some great results on clay this year.  She made too many poor errors in the crucial moments of the third set as Mona booked her place in Sunday’s final, which will be against Chanelle Scheepers.  There are still so many things that Barthel needs to work on.  She was pretty intent on coming into the net, which wasn’t a successful tactic.  Her first serve is good, but the second serve is still very attackable.  Mona’s overheads also need a lot of work and she managed to completely fluff quite a few during the match.  For all she has to work on, the fluidity in her strokes when she is on her game remain as eye-catching as ever.  I also thought Mona defended very well in this match considering it is not one of her strengths and clay isn’t her best surface.

All in all, this has been a brilliant week for Mona that should give her renewed confidence heading into the US hard court season.  I think the final will be another close three setter.  Both players have won titles before, but both have a tendency to get very nervous.  I’d take Barthel in three.  I imagine it will be one of those matches that requires watching from behind a pillow…