By Chris Oddo | Wednesday January 11, 2016
Eugenie Bouchard surged into the Apia International semifinals with a decisive victory over Russia’s Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova on Wednesday. The Canadian reaches the last four of a WTA-level event since last March and will face Great Britain’s Johanna Konta for a spot in the final.
Bouchard reunited with coach Thomas Hogstedt prior to the start of the season and appears to be rounding into form quite nicely. Bouchard saved the only break point she faced and lost only 11 points on serve all afternoon against the hard-hitting World No.27.
She rolled past No.3-seeded Dominika Cibulkova on Tuesday and will bid for back-to-back Top 10 wins for the first time since Wimbledon 2014 when she faces Konta. Bouchard defeated Konta in their only previous meeting last year at Wimbledon’s second round.
Konta eased past Russia’s Daria Kasatkina, 6-3, 7-5, finishing her match in stiff winds. Kasatkina, who knocked off World No.1 Angelique Kerber on Tuesday, only managed nine of 32 second-serve points and tossed in eight double faults in defeat.
The British No.1 has reached semifinals at back-to-back events this season already. She fell to Katerina Siniakova in the Shenzhen semifinal last week.
Barbora Strycova also reached the semifinals with a 7-5, 6-7(6), 6-4 victory over Caroline Wozniacki. The Czech blew a 5-0 lead in the second-set tiebreaker but rallied from 3-1 down in the decider to defeat the No.10 seed.
Photo: Brett Hemmings/Getty