Gastein a milestone for Olaru, Petkovic
BAD GASTEIN, Austria -- Ioana Raluca Olaru of Romania and Andrea Petkovic of Germany reached their first career WTA Tour final Saturday at the Nuernberger Gastein Ladies.
Olaru upset top-seeded Alize Cornet of France 3-6, 7-5, 6-3, and Petkovic routed Yaroslava Shvedova of Kazakhstan 6-2, 6-1.
Need the scores from any match played in today's tournaments? The 66th-ranked Olaru is 2-1 against the 98th-ranked Petkovic. The German won their last hard-court match, in Indian Wells in March, but Olaru's victories both came on clay, the same surface as at Bad Gastein.
After conceding the opening set, Olaru fell a break behind in the second before the match was interrupted for an hour because of rain.
Cornet double-faulted twice and did not a score a point while serving for the match at 5-4, and was broken again at 5-6.
An early break in the decider was enough for Olaru, who wrapped up the victory when Cornet hit a forehand return long.
The 21-year-old Petkovic has won eight titles on the lower-ranked ITF circuit but had never reached a WTA quarterfinal before Bad Gastein.
"I know I am good enough to beat most players on this level," said Petkovic, who is 5-1 against No. 57 Shvedova. "I expected a tough three-set match, but I didn't give her much of a chance after a shaky start."
Both players struggled early with unforced errors and double-faults on the rain-soaked clay courts.
After splitting the opening four games, Petkovic won nine in a row and converted her first match point when Shvedova netted a forehand.
Copyright 2009 by The Associated Press
