By Erik Gudris/Wednesday, January 22, 2014

 

Li Na entered her third Australian Open finals with a straight sets win over Canada's Eugenie Bouchard.

Photo Credit: Corleve

China's Li Na used her experience and a potent crosscourt backhand to reach her third career Australian Open final.

Standing in her way of that was 19-year-old Eugenie Bouchard of Canada. Bouchard impressed many with her poise throughout the event.

But playing in her first ever Grand Slam semifinal seemed to overwhelm Bouchard in the opening games. Li added to Bouchard's problems by starting off playing very clean tennis with few unforced errors. Up 5-0, Li looked on the verge of closing out the set without dropping a game.

Yet Bouchard finally managed to break Li to get on the board. A few games later, Li closed out the set 6-2 with a swinging forehand winner.

Bouchard settled into the match at the start of the second set by keeping up with Li's pace and power. After a long back and forth game, Bouchard secured a 2-0 lead. But a poor service game soon after from the Canadian handed the break right back.

Trading breaks of serve became the pattern as each tried to grab hold of the set. Often it was Li, with several sharp crosscourt backhand winners, who came out on top in the rallies. Li surged ahead to 5-3 by winning eight out of nine points at one stage.

Soon serving for the match at 5-4, Li appeared unnerved by some noisy fans in the crowd. But she soon settled into the game and reached her first match point.

With both women scrambling from all sides of the court, it was Li who ended it with a final crosscourt backhand winner to seal the 6-2, 6-4 win.

Li hit 35 winners to just 10 for Bouchard during the nearly 90 minute match. Bouchard's key stat was only winning 18 percent of her second serve points.

Li now contends for her second career Grand Slam title on Saturday night. She will face the winner of the Agnieszka Radwanska versus Dominika Cibulkova meeting in the second women's semifinals.