Errani Grinds as Bartoli, Kvitova Fall at Paris Indoors

Top seed Sara Errani needed over three hours to book her spot in the semis of the Open GDF Suez. Marion Bartoli and Petra Kvitova found themselves both going home early in quarterfinal action.

By Erik Gudris

(February 1st, 2013) -- The Paris Indoors, officially known as the Open GDF Suez, has featured several top ten players who made earlier than expected exits at last month's Australian Open along with a handful of rising young WTA stars. But after today's quarterfinal action, only the top seed remained as upsets ruled the day.

Despite going down a set and an early break, Lucie Safarova was told by her coach during a changeover that she was right where she wanted to be against young Dutch player Kiki Bertens. Perhaps Safarova's coach knew what she was talking about as Safarova battled back from being 2-4 down in the second set to level things at 5-all.

But after Safarova botched an overhead in the next game to give Bertens the break back, she could only watch as Bertens closed out the match with a final ace 6-1, 7-5.

Bertens, who lost early in the event and then found herself back in the main draw as a lucky loser, is making the most of her second chance by making her first ever Premier semifinal. Next up for her is top seed Sara Errani who was forced to battle for over three hours against Spain's Carla Suarez Navarro.

Errani broke late in the final set and went on to close out the 7-5, 4-6, 7-5 victory. Errani was relieved that she didn't have to turn back around and play doubles with her friend Roberta Vinci after Safarova withdrew from their scheduled match due to injury.

The evening matches featured France's best player Marion Bartoli against the always streaky Mona Barthel of Germany. Once again it was Barthel who proved when she's on she can be hard to stop as she closed out the first set in a tiebreak and then went up an early break of serve in the second.

Showing no signs of nerves, Barthel closed out the match with an ace 7-6(7), 6-4 to earn her second top 10 win of her career. The other being ironically against Bartoli a year ago in Stuttgart.

Barthel will face another surprise semifinalist in young 19-year-old French wildcard Kristina Mladenovic who went up an early break of serve in her match against No. 2 seed Petra Kvitova, a former champion of the event. Though each woman traded breaks of serves in both sets, it was unforced errors from Kvitova's racquet that led to her undoing as Mladenovic scored the final upset of the day with a 6-3, 6-4 win.

(Photo Credit: R.Lewis)