新闻报道:
INDIAN WELLS, Calif. — No. 21 Flavia Pennetta won the battle of the veterans at the BNP Paribas Open on Friday night, upsetting top seed Li Na 7-6 (5), 6-3 to advance to her first WTA Premier Mandatory final.
The 32-year-old Italian will face No. 4 Agnieszka Radwanska in Sunday’s final. Radwanska beat Simona Halep 6-3, 6-4 in a highly entertaining match.
Pennetta’s win over Li reads ugly on the stat sheet. Li hit nine double faults and 52 unforced errors, and the two combined for nine service breaks. Early in the match, Li told her husband to leave the stadium after the two had a disagreement during her warm-up; she needed to usher him away to focus.
Both women described it as a high-quality match, though, and chalked up the mistakes to the need to penetrate the other’s defense and go for winners. Once they got into the rallies, Li’s firepower and Pennetta’s counterpunching combined to produce a number of scintillating rallies.
“We make mistakes, but we make mistakes because we try to find the winner all the time,” Pennetta said. “It was good in that way, but of course when you try [for] too much, you make mistakes. We both didn’t serve really well, but our returning was amazing. She was really good. All the time I had the pressure when I was serving, and it was the same for her.”
The second-ranked Li was surprisingly upbeat after the loss, pleased that she was able to make her first semifinal here since 2007 with the added pressure of being the No. 1 seed in the absence of Serena Williams. She missed last year’s tournament with an injury, which means the points she won these past two weeks almost feel like a bonus.
“At least I have a couple matches in Indian Wells,” Li said. “And also it is not bad [to make the] semis. Also, I [didn't] lose to a bad player. She played well. So, yeah, nothing to worry about. I still have a couple things I can improve, so I still have couple days to prepare for the next tournament [at the Sony Open next week].”