Nadia Petrova pulled off a complete comeback against Sara Errani in today’s quarterfinal of the Toray Pan Pacific Open 2012. She will challenge Sam Stosur for a place in 2012 Tokyo final.
17th seed Petrova and 7th-seeded Errani have met for the second time in their careers, with Errani defeating her Tokyo quarterfinal rival at the Australian Open earlier this year. The Italian came quite close to repeating the victory as she dominated the opening set with some confident serving. On the other hand, Petrova was first broken to love in the third game and got herself in trouble again by offering 2012 French Open finalist Errani three set points when serving to stay in the set at 3-5. The Italian, who made a top 10 debut in May and lifted four WTA trophies in 2012 so far, accepted the gift to go one set up.
One break of serve was enough for the Italian to take a 4-1 lead in the second set. Petrova was practically in a lost position, being forced to defend a break point in the following game in order to keep her chances alive. She came stronger into the next game and broke back to make it 3-4. The experienced Russian put on another convincing display at 5-5 to steal Errani’s serve for the second time and served her way to level the match at one set apiece.
Petrova, who conquered Hertogenbosch in June, failed to confirm any of her two breaks by 3-3. It was when the Russian took Errani’s serve once more to get her nose in front, but she almost wasted this opportunity too as she needed to fight back from a triple break point deficit to go 5-3 up. Errani then sealed her faith by losing her fourth serve of the decider. Petrova will be happy to have reached the Tokyo semifinal with a 3-6, 7-5, 6-3 triumph.
She is leading 5-3 in head-to-head series against her next opponent Samantha Stosur. There is one victory a piece between the players in 2012.
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