Samantha Stosur, the 7th seed from Australia, totally dominated 4th seed, Jelena Jankovic of Serbia in the 2010 French Open semifinals, winning 6-1, 6-2.
It was Samantha’s third straight win over a player who has held the #1 ranking. She defeated 4-time French Open champion and former #1 Justine Henin of Belgium in the 4th round, and 2002 Roland Garros champ and current #1 Serena Williams of the USA.
Samantha was dominate from the start in a match that took just one hour. She hit 18 winners (7 aces) with 16 unforced errors (4 double faults); Jelena hit only 9 winners (2 aces), but had 22 errors (1 DF). Samantha converted 5 of 10 break points she held against Jelena; Jelena scored on only 1 of 5 break points she reached against Samantha. Sam won 59 points; Jelena, 38.
The win puts Samantha in her first Grand Slam final. After the match she said: “I probably couldn’t have asked to play a much better match today in the semifinals. So to do that today and now be in my first final is just incredible… I was expecting a tough match, and I was prepared for that. When things were going the way they were, I didn’t doubt it for a second, or wonder if I could keep it up, was it going to turn around. I just kept playing the next point.”
Jelena gave Samantha some credit: “The whole time I didn’t really have a rhythm. Samantha played really well. She served well. Overall, you know, she played quite solid. I felt heavy on my feet. I didn’t really move out there. That resulted in a negative way on every shot, because especially on the return I didn’t have a good reaction. And then when I got into some of the points, when I had chances, I made bad mistakes. It wasn’t me. It wasn’t my game out there. Unfortunately, I lost. She was the better player today.”
