Zvonareva, Radwanska Reach Tokyo Final at BetLM

TOKYO —Vera Zvonareva staged a remark­able turn­around to beat Wim­ble­don
cham­pion Petra Kvi­tova 7–6 (2), 6–0 on Fri­day and advance to the final at the
Pan Pacific Open.

The fourth-seeded Russ­ian took advan­tage of a col­lapse by Kvi­tova, who held
a com­fort­able 5–1 lead in the first set before Zvonareva stormed back to make it
5–5, break­ing her oppo­nent three times. Both play­ers then held serve to force
the tiebreaker.

The sec­ond set was all Zvonareva, who broke the fifth-seeded Czech three
times to close out the match in 1 hour, 30 minutes.

“If I knew what hap­pened I would tell you,” Kvi­tova said. “I don’t know
what hap­pened. At 5–1, I just didn’t play my game and she came back and played
much bet­ter than me. The first set was mine for sure.”

Zvonareva will face Agnieszka Rad­wan­ska of Poland in Saturday’s final. The
ninth-seeded Rad­wan­ska beat No. 3 seed Vic­to­ria Azarenka of Belarus 6–3, 4–6,
6–2 in a match that lasted 2 hours, 31 minutes.

Zvonareva had won both her pre­vi­ous matches against Kvi­tova on hard courts
and con­tin­ued her dom­i­nance in Friday’s match at Ari­ake Colosseum.

“I played very good ten­nis, very con­sis­tent,” Zvonareva said. “Petra is a
tough oppo­nent. We always have tough matches but I was a lit­tle more con­sis­tent
today.”

Kvi­tova has beaten Zvonareva twice on clay and said the sur­face was a
fac­tor.

“On clay, she can’t move as well as she does on the hard court so I have
more space and time for win­ners,” Kvi­tova said. “She plays very well on hard
court and is tough to beat.”

Zvonareva and Rad­wan­ska are 2–2 in head-to-head matches.

“I’ve beaten Vera a cou­ple of times, she’s a great player and I know I have
to play my best to beat her,” Rad­wan­ska said. “I just hope I can play like I
can today.”