Belinda Bencic will face Daria Kasatkina in Saturday's final match of WTA 500 tournament in Adelaide. Both players earned their final spot after the withdrawals of their scheduled opponents - Paula Badosa and Veronika Kudermetova.
Badosa explained her withdrawal with an abductor injury. “I’m really disappointed that I had to withdraw today because I was really looking forward to the match. Yesterday when I was playing, it was a very tough match, especially physical, so I felt a little bit in my abductor. I felt like I pulled it a little bit. Today I feel a little bit worse, so yeah, I have the Australian Open ahead, and I hope I can recover for that.” - said the Spaniard, quoted in the article on tournament's organizers website.
Kudermetova though, needed 2:40h to battle through Danielle Collins in the quarterfinal clash, when the Russian defended 5 match points in second set to force a deciding set. Kudermetova announced the left hip injury and pulled out of the semifinal same as Badosa. Because of that, women's side of the tournament experienced no contest in the semis, just the day after one of the strongest quarterfinals line-up since a long time in any WTA 500 tournament.
There is no mistery with the fact, that the players have the Australian Open grand slam in their mind, which starts just in the three days from now. The history shows, that the top players, who were commited with a deep runs in the tournaments immediately preceding the most important events in tennis calendar, were an easy target for an upset in the opening rounds. That can somehow explain the story of today's disappointing no-show experience.
