Kooyong’s Destanee Aiava Sees Australia Through To World Teams Semi Final
Australia is set for a semi final showdown with the second seeded team from Ukraine tonight after the Destanee Aiava led side defeated the home country, the Czech Republic, in impressive fashion last night.
After wins against Peru and Poland over the first two days, the Australian girls needed to keep that form going to reach the last four.
Jeannette Lin played another fantastic match to put the Australians up one rubber to love when she defeated her accomplished Czech opponent, Karolina Berankova, in straight sets 6/3 6/2.
“Jeanette Lin kicked us off with an emphatic win against a very accomplished Czech girl. She really stepped up and played a great match today to put us one up,” said coach Craig Tyzzer.
Destanee then stepped up to the plate in the number one position to again produce a sterling performance for her country when it was needed as she did battle with Lucia Kankova.
She got off to a great start to win the first set 6/2 and had one foot in the semi finals but the Czech girl wasn’t finished yet as she fought back to win the second set 6/3 to send the match into a deciding set.
From there it was all Destanee, as she reeled off six consecutive games to win the match 6/0 in the third set and put Australia into the semi finals.
“Destanee Aiva was next up against the No.1 Czech girl and she played a tremendously hard-fought match which featured well over two-and-a-half hours of quality hitting. Destanee finished really strong with a 6-0 third set win to put us through to the last four,” said Tyzzer.
In the doubles, Destanee teamed up Gabby Ruffels but the Czech girls clawed one back in a hard fought 7/6 4/6 6/4 victory.
The semi final with the unbeaten team from Ukraine should be another great challenge for the Australian girls as they seek to win the title while in the other match Russia will take on the unseeded team from Romania.
