MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russia’s Daria Kasatkina and Julia Goerges of Germany will meet in the final of the Kremlin Cup after defeating their semi-final opponents in Moscow on Friday.
Kasatkina, 28th in the Women’s Tennis Association (WTA) rankings, took charge early in her 6-2 6-3 win against Romania’s Irina-Camelia Begu, breaking her serve and holding to win the first two games. Kasatkina broke twice more to close the first set.
Begu, who underwent treatment on her shoulder between sets, was broken in the first game of the second set.
The match’s turning point came when Kasatkina won the seventh game to love on Begu’s serve, winning all further games to take the set 6-3.
Kasatkina will be joined in the final by seventh seed Goerges, who destabilized Russia’s Natalia Vikhlyantseva by breaking her serve in the first game before going on to win the match 6-2 2-6 7-5.
Goerges, 27th in the rankings, dominated the first set but dropped the second after Vikhlyantseva twice broke her serve. Goerges came back to win the third set 7-5.
(Reporting by Gabrielle Tétrault-Farber; Editing by Christian Radnedge)
