Pliskova one step from glory

The 21-year-old, who relied on her impressive serves and solid baseline game to win the match in one hour and 35 minutes, had won her first WTA trophy in Kuala Lumpur in February last year. 

Hailing from Louny, Pliskova is making her first appearance in Pattaya and will try to become the first player from her country to win here. The last Czech to reach the final was Andrea Strnadova who was beaten by Sabine Appelmans of Belgium in 1992.

World No 66 Goerges and Pliskova squared off for the first time in a match that was expected to feature high quality tennis between two talented players. But the German, who once reached No 15 in the world, never seemed to settle down as errors kept coming from her racquet right from the first point.

Now ranked 102 in the world, the 25-year-old dropped the opening game with a forehand that sailed too long. Although she served six aces in three service games, it did not help Goerges who struggled to keep the ball in play compared to the Czech who was more consistent from the baseline.

After spraying one forehand out before dumping another to the net, Goerges lost her serves for the second time in the seventh game and trailed 5-2. Pliskova could have served out the following game for the set but she showed her nerves for the first time, committing a double fault to squander the first set point. 

The German then broke her rival for the first time when she produced an astonishing running forehand down the line winner for 5-3. However her resistance was brief. She again dropped the level of her tennis and handed the first set to Pliskova after back-to-back double faults.

Goerges raised her game in the second set while Pliskova showed some improvement in her serves. Each came up with eight aces in four games. Play proceeded on serves until the ninth game where momentum swung in favour of the German.

Goerges punished a weak second serve from Pliskova with a backhand winner for a break point at 15-40. Although the Czech escaped the first break point, she gave in quickly after mis-hitting a deep return from the German.  Goerges comfortably held the next game to love to take the second set in 31 minutes and forced the decisive third set. 

In the third, the German was serving the second game at 0-1 40-15 when she failed to hold due to unforced errors, allowing Pliskova to establish a quick 3-0 lead. But the gutsy Goerges broke back for 2-3 with a couple of stunning forehand winners.

As fate would have it, she could not consolidate on that break. The German served a double fault and sprayed a backhand wide to lose the sixth game while Pliskova lost no points on her serves to lead 5-2. Although Goerges saved two match points with an ace and a backhand winner to follow at 3-5, she could not fight off the third match point as the Pliskova blasted a big serve at 40-0 to force an error and wrap up the encounter. 

Pliskova would play the final against either fourth-seeded Ekaterina Makarova of Russia or Andrea Hlavackova of the Czech Republic which can be seen live on NBT and TNN at 4pm.

In the doubles quarter-finals competed late Friday night, Tamarine Tanasugarn and Olga Savchuk of Ukraine went down to China’s Peng Shuai, the 2013 Wimbledon doubles champion, and Zhang Shuai 6-4 6-1.