By Chris Oddo | Friday February 12, 2016
Belinda Bencic battled from a set down to reach the semifinals of the St. Petersburg Ladies Trophy on Friday, setting up a semifinal clash between the two youngest players inside the WTA’s Top-70.
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Bencic’s gritty, determined 6-7(4), 6-4, 6-2 victory Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova places the Swiss one win from reaching the Top-10 for the first time. She’s also one win shy of her 150th career win.
The 18-year-old Swiss, playing in her first tournament as a top seed, improves to 2-1 lifetime vs. Pavlyuchenkova with the win. After dropping the first set in a breaker, Bencic broke four times on ten opportunities over the course of the final two sets, and did not face a break point in the decider.
Her opponent in the semifinals will be Russia’s rising Daria Kasatkina. The 18-year-old world No. 63 also battled from a set down to defeat Dominika Cibulkova, 4-6, 7-5, 6-3. Kasatkina reaches her second tour-level semifinal with the win.
Bencic and Kasatkina each won the Roland Garros Girls Singles title, in 2013 and 2014 respectively. They were junior rivals but have yet to meet at the tour-level.