Seventeeen year-old Donna Vekic is close to achieving a career milestone after making the final of the 2014 BMW Malaysian Open here.
She will meet Dominika Cibulkova, who is currently ranked 10th in the world after beating Zhang Shuai of China; 1-6, 6-3 and 6-4 in one hour and 29 minutes.
"I am so shocked that I have made the final. A couple of months ago, I did not win any match but now I am in the final.
"This is my third time entering final of Women's Tennis Association (WTA) and I hope the experience that I gained will give me opportunity to be a champion here," she said after the semi-finals match at Royal Selangor Golf Club (RSG), on Saturday night.
Vekic made her first Women's Tennis Association (WTA) Tour final at the 2012 Tashkent Open, Uzbekistan. It was her first main draw appearance at WTA tournament.
The Croatian has won four singles and one doubles titles at International Tennis Federation (ITF) Circuit.
Commenting on her opponent for the final, Vekic said that she had lost to Cibulkova at Indian Wells Open, United States of America.
Defending champion, Karolina Pliskova of Czech Republic lost to Slovakia's Cibulkova; 7-6, 3-6 and 3-6 in two hours 29 minutes.
Cibulkova has won two singles titles in ITF Circuit and four singles titles in WTA Tour.
Meanwhile, doubles Chan Yung-Jan of Chinese Taipei and Zheng Saisai of China upset Ukraine's Lyudmyla Kichenok and Olga Savchuk; 4-6, 6-4 and 10-4.
"This is my first pairing with Zheng, we have a good chemistry and teamwork together.. We keep discussing and talked a lot about the match. After the second set, we decided to play more aggresive.
"In the first set, our opponents played really fast we could not catch up and made many mistakes. We came back strongly in the second set," Chan said.
The fourth seed doubles will meet Timea Babos of Hungary and Chinese Taipei's Chan Hao-Ching in final after they (Babos/Chan) beat Jarmila Gajdosovo of Australia and Hsieh Su-Wei of Chinese Taipei; 6-3 and 6-3 on Friday.
"Tomorrow I will play against my younger sister, Chan Hao-Ching. I think it will be interesting match but let's see what will happen later. For sure it will be tough yet interesting match," she said.
Bernama
Sun Apr 20 2014
2014 BMW Malaysian Open: Vekic to play Cibulkova in final. -BERNAMA Photo
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