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Rediff.com  » Sports » Santangelo, Shvedova in final

Santangelo, Shvedova in final

Last updated on: February 17, 2007 22:56 IST
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Defending champion Mara Santangelo of Italy powered her way into the final of the WTA Bangalore Open, beating Olga Savchuk of Ukraine 6-1, 6-0 in Bangalore on Saturday.

In an one-sided match, the 32nd-ranked Santangelo took just 50 minutes to defeat Savchuk, who won just a single game in the entire match.

The Italian will take on Yaroslava Shvedova in the final. The Russian beat Israel's Tzipora Obziler 7-5, 6-2 in the other semi-final.

Santangelo never allowed Savchuk to come back into the match once she broke Savchuk's serve early in the first set. Infact, Savchuk didn't hold any of her serves in the entire match.

Savchuk, ranked 153rd in the world, had stormed into the semi-finals beating last year's runner-up and fourth seed Jelena Kostanic.

"I really played some good tennis this week and I am very happy to be in the finals.  I was more focused and aggressive from the beginning and it really paid off", said Santangelo after the victory.

Shvedova had beaten second seed and crowd favourite Sania Mirza 7-6 (7-2), 4-6, 4-6 to enter the last four.

In a major upset in the doubles tournament, fourth seed Su-Wei Hsieh of Taipei and Alla Kudryavtseva of Russia defeated second seeds Sania Mirza and Mara Santangelo of Italy 6-4, 3-6, 10-5 to enter the final.

Hsieh and Kudryavtseva will meet the top seeded Chinese Taipei players Chan Yung-Jan and Chuang Chia Jung on Sunday.

 Sania-Mara lost the first set 4-6, but powered their way back in the match by clinching the second set 6-3.

However, in the super tie-breaker they were totally dominated by Taipei-Russian duo and lost 5-10.

"The super tie-breaker could have gone anyway; we lost the first set but fought back in the second set. I think we played good tennis," said Sania Mirza later.

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