The Slovak players had not managed to advance into the doubles finals at the clay tournament EMPIRE Slovak Open 2015 in Trnava. The junior players Tereza Mihalikova (16) and Kristina Schmiedlova (17) had not managed to beat the serbo-croatian pair Krunic/ Martic and lost 2-6, 6-7(2). In the quarter finals, Denisa Allertova (22) was able to beat the second seeded Serbian Aleksandra Krunic (22) with the results 6-3, 6-1.
Mihalikova and Schmiedlova have already been successfull enough to beat the first seeded one pair one round before. Their play was relaxed now, they almost got the second set and the supertiebreak. “It was hard to play against them, as we had started playing doubles at the second tournament maybe. It’s great that we had got into the semifinals at the 100K tournament. Now we have our first doubles rankings WTA points,” Mihalikova, the winner of the Juniour Australian Open 2015, announced.
The double players were also happy that quite many spectators came to watch the central court event at TC EMPIRE. “We are Slovaks, so we were not surprised at the amount of the spectators. But it was great, we had a perfect match, and each time we lost the ball, the audience encouraged us. Many thanks to everyone,“ Mihalikova concluded.
Slovakian Lenka Jurikova also played in doubles semi-finals, her partner was the German player Anna Lena Friedsam, but they did not manage to beat the Russian/Ukrainian double Beygelzimer, Gasparyan (3-6, 1-6).
Allertova finally managed to beat Krunic
Allertova was fast at the beginning of the match with Krunic, she quickly took the serve of her oppenent. While the result was 5-1, she let her opponent win the first two games, but she took care of the first set. In the second set, the story of the first set repeated, but the 22-year-old player had a better serve and did not let Krunic change the course of the match.
“At the beginning, I was very nervous. I was trying not to make mistakes, to play precisely and to have a drive. Krunic played very well, so I happy I managed it and kept calm,“ Denisa Allertova describes her impressions.
After the fourth attempt, the Czech player managed to beat Krunic and during her third participation in Trnava, she got among the four best players. Tommorow at the semifinals at 12.00 AM, Allertova is fighting against the Russian player Gasparyan.
The second semi-finals will be played by the Monte Negro player Danka Kovinic and the Latvian Jelena Ostapenko who suprisingly won against seeded No. 1 Tereza Smitkova with the final results 4-6, 6-3, 3-6.
The doubles finals will take place on Saturday at 04.00 PM.