Cornet wins in straight sets over Stosur at Ladies Championship Gstaad
Alize Cornet dealt with some frustrating moments on court but got the result she wanted at the Ladies Championship Gstaad on Friday. The top seed of the tournament held back Samantha Stosur who fought in the late stages of the sets but lost 6-4, 7-6 (2) at Roy Emerson Arena. It was the first time in a decade that Cornet had won a match against her ending a lengthy losing streak.
The eighth meeting for the two players set up their first quarterfinal against one another and the first matchup on clay. Cornet has shown comfort on the court winning both her matches in straight sets. The same went for the Aussie who was yet to drop a set while taking down Francesca Schiavone and Patty Schnyder. While she has a 5-2 lead on the French star, it would be a tough battle with Cornet also a strong competitor on the surface.
She proved her experience with a break of Stosur before containing her first service hold of the match. She picked up a third as Stosur's second serve let her down allowing her opponent to attack at her return game which was not yet up to speed. It quickly turned into a runaway for the French star as her comfort level was high enough to fire off a fourth win with very little coming from Stosur.
She managed to record her first service hold in the fifth but stopping the momentum of Cornet proved extremely difficult. She watched as the 28-year-old held in the sixth to play for the first set. Stosur would not allow her to go up a set that easily holding in the seventh before consolidating it with a break.
She gave herself a chance to come back and fight for it while Cornet's return game suffered. She added a third straight sitting a game down after the ninth sending Cornet to call for her coach to come out. After some words of advice, Cornet was able to get out of a jam and secure the set on her terms after 38 minutes.
During the break between sets, Stosur took a chat with her coach on what to change differently going into the second. She tried to implement what was talked about but found herself committing a third double fault while also struggling to contain the serve. She saved the game by forcing deuce taking four breaks to get it done.
While it was a tough fight to achieve a win, she still couldn’t stop Cornet from marching to her ultimate goal. She took the next three straight before going for a double break in the fifth. Stosur battled on serve to deny Cornet after a few breaks and sit a game down to for the chance to level the score.
She did that in the eighth and made a difficult time for Cornet whose return game fell to pieces. Though there were times where she had some control, it wasn’t enough to overcome the power Stosur was bringing in the final stages of the second. She took a 6-5 lead with the French star serving to keep her straight-set hopes alive. A big hold in the 12th enabled a tiebreak with the Australian landing a well-placed winner.
It gave her just enough energy to start the tiebreak with three consecutive points before Stosur found her first on serve. When the ball came back to the 28-year-old, she made it 4-1 hoping to keep the 34-year-old at bay. Two unforced errors from Stosur gave her four match points where she delivered a lob shot return that bounced twice to secure the victory after 1 hour and 39 minutes.
While there were a lot of mistakes made on the return and second serve, her tenacity to stay in the fight had her going into Saturday's semifinal against Eugenie Bouchard.