British Tennis - Lawn Tennis Association

British number one Elena Baltacha continued her relentless run at the AEGON Nottingham Challenge as she overcame Stephanie Dubois to book her place in the final.

The 27-year-old dropped just four games for the third successive match as she beat the in-form Canadian 6-2, 6-2.

Dubois had been one of the stars of the tournament having knocked out the seeded pair of Brit Anne Keothavong and Evgeniya Rodina on route to the semi-finals.

But Baltacha made light work of her opponent, dominating from the start and breaking serve five times in eight games.

Despite the dominance of her win, Baltacha admitted not being completely satisfied with her performance.

“It was a really strange match and I didn’t feel as connected or fluent as I have been in the previous two matches,” she said. “But I stuck in there and kept on believing in my game. It was a very patchy match but I did enough and I am very pleased to be in the final.”

The world number 83 will now play sixth seed Petra Cetkovska, who beat Tamarine Tanasguran 6-3, 6-3 in the day’s other semi-final and Baltacha is no doubt of the challenge ahead.

“She’s having a really good week, striking the ball very cleanly and playing really well,” added Baltacha. “But I’m in the final now and I’ve nothing to lose. I didn’t expect to come straight in here and get to the final as there were some big players in the draw, but I’ve been taking it one match at a time.

“I’m playing good tennis and she’s playing good tennis, so it should make for a really good final.”

While both players were able to enjoy a day’s rest before their final, the same luxury was not afforded to the men’s draw. 

Wet weather earlier in the week meant that both the semi-finals and final had to be played on the same day with number two seed Dudi Sela eventually triumphing 6-4, 3-6, 7-5 over Jeremy Chardy to lift the AEGON Nottingham Challenge trophy.

In the semi-finals first seed Chardy had to come through a marathon match against Izak van der Merwe, eventually beating the South African 6-7, 7-6, 7-6 after more than three and a half hours of play.

Sela on the other hand only took an hour and a half to beat Australian teenager Bernard Tomic 7-5, 6-4 to book his place in the final.

Chardy’s early day exertions looked to have affected him in the opening set of the final, but the Frenchman surged into a 3-0 in the second before holding to win the set  6-3.

That never say die attitude was again evident in the tournament decider as he came back from 4-1 down to level at 4-4 before finally succumbing to Sela - whose day was made even better with the news that he had been awarded a wild card for the Wimbledon Championships.

If Chardy’s on court exploits were impressive, they were nothing compared to his singles semi-final opponent van der Merwe as the South African clocked up a remarkable five hours 40 minutes on court on Saturday as he played in three different matches.

After missing out in the singles, he reached the final of the doubles alongside partner Treat Conrad Huey with a 7-5, 6-2 victory over Carsten Ball and Jesse Huta Galung.

In the final van der Merwe came up against fellow countryman Rik de Voest and Canadian teammate Adil Shamasdin and it was the latter pairing that eventually took the title 6-3, 7-6.

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