Top seed Samantha Stosur has been badly beaten at the Hobart International by the player she’ll face in the Australian Open first round.
Stosur produced a lacklustre and error-strewn performance to lose her semi-final 6-3 6-2 to Czech world no.37 Klara Zakopalova today.
Just hours before their match, the pair were drawn to meet again at the Australian Open in Melbourne after it gets underway on Monday.
There was a bizarre start to Stosur’s first semi-final on home soil since 2005, the world no.17 needing a medical timeout after the warm-up when she suffered a bleeding nose.
The 29-year-old laughed as she had her blood pressure taken by the tournament doctor, eventually taking the court after a delay of around 10 minutes.
She admitted the incident had distract her.
“When you kind of get thrown off at the start, it’s hard to bring it all back together and get into that same kind of rhythm that you want to be in,” she said.
Stosur lost her opening service game but broke back immediately.
Zakopalova broke again in the sixth to lead 4-2 and then saved seven break points in the next game as the Australian attacked.
Surviving that onslaught, the Czech served out the set.
Stosur found herself down an early break again in the second but broke back for 2-2.
She meekly lost her next service game to love and was broken again for 5-2 before Zakopalova served out the match.
Zakopalova will play the winner of the other semi-final between Spaniards Garbine Muguruza and Estrella Cabeza Candela, who play later today, in tomorrow’s final.
Stosur said she wouldn’t let the loss affected her Australian Open campaign, which begins with a re-match against Zakopalova.
“Once that day’s finished, I think you’ve got to be able to move on,” Stosur said.
“You take what you can from it, try and learn from it, go out and work on whatever it is you need to work on, but certainly don’t go into that first round thinking ‘oh geez’ it was only a couple of days ago.
“I don’t think that’s going to be helpful.”