Maria Sharapova will face Ana Ivanovic in the women’s singles final of the Brisbane International after she cruised past Ukrainian starlet Elina Svitolina in Friday night’s semifinal.
The tournament’s top seed showed more great signs ahead of the Australian Open and was largely untroubled in the comprehensive 6-1 6-3 win at Pat Rafter Arena.
Her blistering form will now receive a much sterner test in the form of Ivanovic, the second seed, who had to dig deep to get past American Vavara Lepchenko in the other semi earlier on Friday.
Sharapova also defeated Yaroslava Shvedova and Carla Suarez-Navarro in straight sets earlier in Brisbane and was clearly intent on continuing that ruthless streak against Svitolina.
She drew first blood by breaking the Ukrainian second service game and then slammed her foot down on the accelerator, wrapping up the opener in 30 minutes.
The clean-striking Russian hit 17 winners to five in the first set and rarely put a foot wrong.
Then again, neither did Svitolina – but there was little the 20-year-old could do to shake Sharapova in this kind of touch.
A determined Svitolina staged a mini-resistance late on, saving four match points to secure back-to-back games and stretch out the second set to nearly an hour.
But it only delayed the inevitable, with world number two Sharapova riding out her opponent’s purple patch to secure victory and set up a tantalising final on Saturday night.
TICKETS still available. Don’t miss your chance to see Maria Sharapova take on Ana Ivanovic in tonight’s Brisbane International women’s singles final. Tickets are on sale through Ticketek.