Lulu Sun served first when she played Anastasia Tikhonova in their singles semi-final in Rancho Santa Fe this morning, and the omens looked good when she started with an ace and held to love. Tikhonova lost her first point, but won the rest, and then hit the first proper highlight shot of the match, a fabulous cross-court forehand return. She followed that with a beautiful forehand volley to end a good short rally, and Sun sent a backhand over the baseline to give away the first break of serve.
Tikhonova started the next game with a hiss and a roar, following a beautiful cross-court backhand winner with her first ace, and a cross-court forehand from Sun went into the tramlines to make the score 40-0, She saved the first game point with a nice cross-court backhand winner, and two poor shots into the net from Tikhonova dropped her back to deuce. There would eventually be four of those, Sun getting the advantage after each, and the last three coming from beautiful forehand winners. She missed her return after each of the first three, but got the last one back in play, and Tikhonova sent a backhand over the baseline to lose the game after eight and a half minutes.
Sun started the next game with a beautiful forehand winner down the line, and won a good rally with a fabulous inside-out forehand winner before holding serve with a lovely overhead cross-court backhand volley. Although Tikhonova hit a fabulous forehand winner down the line, and added an ace two points later, she finished the next game with three unforced errors to give away another break. The next game was the best of the match, with two beautiful forehand winners from each player, but the other two points were a forced backhand return error and Sun’s second ace. Tikhonova held serve again to stay in the set, but Sun held to love to serve it out after 37 minutes, the highlight being what was probably the shot of the match, her fabulous forehand winner down the right sideline.
Tikhonova copied Sun’s start by hitting an ace to open the second set, and she had a routine hold before Sun held to love. Once again multiple deuces eventually proved Tikhonova’s downfall, as she again succumbed to the pressure after four of them in the next game, but this time she finished with her only double fault of the match.
She did hit a couple of glorious forehand winners in the next game, the second of which took Sun to her first deuce, but the left-hander held her serve after the third of them when she finished with another beautiful forehand winner down the right sideline. Tikhonova hit a beautiful backhand drop shot in the next game, but that was surrounded by four forehand unforced errors to gift Sun another break. Sun had to save a break point in the next game, which she did with a beautiful forehand winner down the line, and two unreturnable serves consolidated the double break.
The best rally of the match came in the next game, although it ended tamely when Sun dumped a forehand into the net after 12 shots, and Tikhonova went on to hold serve. Sun was never in trouble as she served out the match, a forced return error from Tikhonova bringing up match point. Sun was forced to hit a backhand into the tramlines to give that one away, but it was quite fitting that she should complete the victory with another beautiful forehand winner down the line. The final score was 6-3, 6-2, and the match took an hour and 14 minutes. Tomorrow’s final will be against the fourth seed, Yuliia Starodubtseva from Ukraine.