The top seeded Julia Görges has entered the final of the WTA tournament in Luxembourg after a moral victory and will take up her second title of the season on Saturday. The Fed Cup player turned the game around against qualifier Eugenie Bouchard and won the remarkable exchange of blows with 6:7 (3:7), 7:5, 6:1.
After almost 2:21 hours, Görges converted her first match ball with her eighth ace at the CK Sportcenter in Luxembourg. In her third 2018 final, she will face either qualifier Belinda Bencic (Switzerland) or 18-year-old Hong Kong winner Dayana Yastremska (Ukraine) on Saturday. In the duel with the Canadian, Görges achieved 48 winners (with only 26 Unforced Errors).
Bouchard, who had benefited the day before in the quarter-finals from the injury-induced abandonment of the strong Andrea Petkovic (Darmstadt), got the better start. The 2014 Wimbledon finalist used her first chance to take the service from the favourite and led 4-1 a little later.
At the following change Görges let her coach Michael Geserer come, who reassured her: “You are the better one. And you’ll still get a chance to break her.”
Although the ninth in the world rankings was trailing 2-5 shortly thereafter, her coach was right. Görges, Luxembourg finalist from 2010, made use of her fifth break ball and then equalled it with a clearly won serve game to 5:5.
The 24-year-old Bouchard, however, seemed to be extremely stable for a long time during the sometimes high-class and exciting game – especially when it came to service. The influence of coach Michael Joyce, who has been looking after the right-hander from Montreal, who is currently in position 108 in the WTA ranking, for about two weeks, was already clearly visible.
Also in the tiebreak, when Bouchard quickly earned himself three set balls. Görges finished her race to catch up with a forehand error in the net – but not with the desired result.
The Wimbledon semi-finalist, who has once again qualified for the ‘B-World Cup’ in Zhuhai, suffered another setback a little later when she was forced to relinquish her service in the first game of the second half. Bouchard even had several options for a double-break, but Görges held against it and was not disturbed by the fact that “Genie” was only two points away from the match win at 5:4 and his own serve.
Görges acted courageously even in the narrow phases – and was rewarded. The 29-year-old forced a decision process. There, the now unstoppable Regensburg player marched straight to success after winning nine games in a row across sets.
Bouchard missed her first win against a top ten player since January 2017, but the former world number five indicated that she was on the right track with former Sharapova coach Joyce.