The top two seeds, Jarmilla Groth and Arina Rodionova, have won their way through to the final of the 2010 McDonalds Burnie International.
In the first semi-final, Russia’s Arina Rodionova was on top early against Australia’s Jessica Moore breaking in the first and third games racing to a 3-0 lead. Rodionova was mixing up her pace well with Moore trying to shorten the points after several long three set matches during the tournament. Rodionova continued to dominate using her backhand as a weapon and also drop shotting Moore to keep her advantage. Rodionova took the first set 6-1 and continued on her winning way in the second set breaking Moore immediately.
Rodionova was sweating on Moore’s serve, which was beginning to lose its penetration. Rodionova broke Moore’s serve again in the sixth game and was dominating from the back of the court off both the forehand and backhand sides.
Rodionova was able to serve out the match to win 6-1 to book a spot in the final against the other semi-final winner, Jarmilla Groth.
Groth began her semi-final against Japan’s Chiaki Okadaue on fire with thunderous ground strokes putting Okadaue on the back foot. She breezed through the first 6-1 and the second was looking to go the same way until Okadaue hung tough in the third game where she was looking down the barrel serving at 0-40. Okadaue held that game and then in the sixth game she was able to break the Groth serve to go up 4-2. Groth had several opportunities to break back in the next game but was unable and then the set was clinched by Okadaue when she broke Groth in the tenth game to win it 6-4.
At the start of the third set Groth took control of the match again breaking Okadaue twice early to lead 3-0. Groth raced to a 5-1 lead and had two match points in the seventh game on Okadaue’s serve but was unable to clinch it. Groth then had to serve it out and needed six match points to win her way through to the final.
