Lucie Safarova produced a clinic on Thursday night as she sailed into the semi-finals of the 2015 Qatar Total Open with a 6-2 6-1 victory over Andrea Petkovic.  Lucie hit a stunning 30 winners to just 9 unforced errors.  To see stats like that in Doha is really something.  Firstly, a word for Petko.  She seemed to be struggling with a leg injury, which was a real shame.  She did well to win her first two matches this week, both from a set down.  I still don’t think she is playing great this year, but toughing out the wins is a great trait to have.  Lucie was just on fire today and playing with so much confidence.  She was so clear in her gameplan and finishing points off at the net… 13 out of 15 points won was another stand-out on the stats page.

Lucie has now secured back-to-back top ten wins after beating Ekaterina Makarova in the second round.  I was a little worried after Lucie went winless in Australia, but she’s really turned it around in the last few weeks.  The win against Casey Dellacqua in Dubai was, in my opinion, a really crucial victory.  I also think the doubles win in Melbourne must have been a big confidence boost.  In the semi-finals, Lucie takes on Carla Suarez Navarro.  There were several what the…. moments on Thursday, but checking the live scores during the Kvitova v Suarez Navarro match was the biggest head scratcher.  I read that Petra won the first 13 points of the match. However, after winning the first set, 6-3, she then went onto lose the next 10 games.  Petra mounted a late comeback, but it wasn’t enough as Carla broke and then held to secure her THIRD consecutive victory over Kvitova.

Suarez Navarro has been equally impressive since Australia with five top 30 wins.  This has included a finals appearance in Antwerp, quarter-finals in Dubai and now semi-finals in Doha.  The Spaniard will be a very tricky opponent for Lucie.  It’s never a guarantee that Lucie will be able to deliver the same kind of performance tomorrow and the conditions will be different as the pair are first up on the schedule at not before 4.30pm local time.  In the head-to-head, Lucie has won both previous matches in straight sets in Fed Cup action on carpet (6-4 6-3, 2009) and Madrid on clay (6-3 6-4, 2012).  To be honest, those matches were so long ago that it’s hard to factor their H2H into this match.  As already mentioned, CSN will not be an easy opponent, but I really believe Lucie can keep winning and i’m starting to think that Lucie believes too!

Prediction: Safarova d. Suarez Navarro in 3 sets

Have another smiling Lucie picture… 🙂

Both screencaps in this post from TennisTV coverage