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By Erik Gudris | Saturday, March 1, 2014

 

Christina McHale will seek her first ever WTA title as she takes on top seed Dominika Cibulkova in the Acapulco final.

Photo Credit: Corleve

After a tense battle, American Christina McHale finds herself into her first ever WTA final at the Abierto Mexicano Telcel event in Acapulco.

To get there, McHale had to get past France's Caroline Garcia in the semifinals. Garcia, who upset No. 2 seed Eugenie Bouchard earlier, proved a tough opponent as Garcia would take the first set.

McHale fought back to take the second set and that set up a tense deciding set. Both held serve as they edged closer to what looked like an inevitable tiebreak.

But McHale put pressure on Garcia's serve while up 6-5. Soon the American would hold multiple match points. Finally on her sixth much point, McHale closed out the 3-6, 6-2, 7-5 victory after almost three hours of play.

"It feels amazing…it still hasn't really sunken in yet. Caroline was playing really solid in the first set and I was getting pushed too far behind the baseline, so I really tried to dictate a little bit more. I started getting into the games more and serving a lot better, as well," McHale said to WTA.com later. "I kind of had a good feeling this tournament."

McHale reached two previous WTA semifinals in her career, both at Quebec City, in 2010 and 2013.

Waiting for her in the final is top seed and recent Australian Open finalist Dominika Cibulkova.

Cibulkova had an unexpected easier time of things in her semifinal versus No. 8 seed Shuai Zhang.

Though Zhang got off to a 2-0 lead in the opening set, that advantage evaporated as Cibulkova soon pulled ahead. Zhang, then suffering from a right arm injury, was forced to retire with the score at 4-2.

Cibulkova leads the head to head with McHale 2-0 and won their last meeting in Brussels two years ago.

 

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