Donna Vekic plays a backhand in her semifinal match against Maria Sakkari of Greece Photo: Wolfgang Kumm/dpa
From BZ/dpa
The tennis players Donna Vekic and Petra Kvitova are in the final of the lawn tournament in Berlin.
In the semifinals on Saturday, the Croatian Vekic won 6: 4, 7: 6 (10: 8) against Maria Sakkari from Greece. Then the two-time Wimbledon champion Petra Kvitova from the Czech Republic won 6: 3, 6: 4 against the Russian Ekaterina Alexandrowa. The final of the WTA tournament will take place on Sunday (3:30 p.m./Servus TV) in the Steffi Graf Stadium.
Vekic, who is currently in 23rd place in the world rankings and is 15 places worse than her opponent, celebrated after 2:16 hours in the tie-break. The 26-year-old had previously awarded three match points.
Petra Kvitova in her semi-final against Ekaterina Alexandrova of Russia Photo: Wolfgang Kumm/dpa
Kvitova got through faster. After a convincing performance, the number nine in the world converted her second match point after 1:19 hours. She did not have to give up a service game against Alexandrowa.
For both finalists, the victories to reach the final were already the second success of the day. By midday, both had already won their quarterfinals. Actually, the quarter-finals should have been played on Friday. But continuous rain prevented the entire game operation and led to the postponement to Saturday.
The tournament at the LTTC Rot-Weiss facility, endowed with 850,000 US dollars (around 777,000 euros), also serves as a preparation for Wimbledon.