Czech Republic’s Barbora Krejcikova won 7-5, 4-6, 9-7 over Greece’s Maria Sakkari in the semifinal of the Roland Garros 2021 at Court Philippe-Chatrier. The match lasted for three hours and 18 minutes. She will face Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova on Saturday to play her first ever final in a Grand Slam.
Sakkari won the third game of the final set to break Krejcikova’s service and was serving for a spot in the final at 5-4. But Krejcikova broke back when needed, to even things up. With no tie-breakers in the final set of the French Open, the set went beyond 6-6 and also crossed the three-hour mark.
Sakkari survived a scare in the 13th game of the third set, as she had to save three match points from trailing 15-40 in the game. In the 16th game, there was a bit of drama over a line call at Krejcikova’s side of the court, when the Czech player had a match point. The ball was adjudged in by the chair umpire after he inspected the ball mark. The hawk-eye, however, deemed the ball in. However, she later won the game, and with it, the set and match
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Sakkari began the second set with a double break, taking a 4-0 lead. Krejcikova hit back with a break and two service holds in the next three games. But it was not enough to bring the set back on level terms, as Sakkari closed out the set to win 6-4.
Krejcikova won a hard-fought first set with a scoreline of 7-5, that lasted 56 minutes. Despite having her serve broken twice early in the set by Sakkari, the Czech player came back as many times to level the set at 3-3. This was only the second time Sakkari had dropped her set in the French Open 2021.
Statistics:
(Krejcikova-Sakkari)
Aces: 5-2
Double faults: 5-3
Unforced errors: 57-50
Break points won: 7/15 – 6/11
This was the first time, the two players had gone past the quarterfinals of Grand Slams. 17th seeded Sakkari won against the reigning champion Iga Swiatek, and the unseeded Krejcikova won against American Coco Gauff, in the quarterfinals.
