Australian tennis star Samantha Stosur powered into the French Open semi-finals with a straight-sets disposal of Slovakian Dominika Cibulkova.
The US Open champion continued her authoritative march through the draw with a comprehensive 6-4, 6-1 victory over the 15th seed on Tuesday.
The only player in the women's draw yet to drop a set this campaign, Stosur will face either German 10th seed Angelique Kerber or Italian Sara Errani on Thursday for a place in Saturday's title match.
Stosur will be a warm favourite no matter who she plays in her third semi-final in four years at Roland Garros.
The 2010 runner-up holds a dominant winning record over both her prospective semi-final foes.
Stosur is five from five against Errani and has won both encounters with Kerber - in Fed Cup on clay last month in Stuttgart and also in last year's US Open semi-finals.
Cibulkova had upset world number one Victoria Azarenka in the fourth round and made the semi-finals in Paris three years ago.
But Stosur simply had too many weapons for the diminutive Slovak.
Playing with controlled aggression, Stosur grabbed the first service break of the match in the fifth game as Cibulkova's defensive moonballing tactics backfired.
Stosur wobbled trying to serve out the set at 5-2, but held her nerve to stave off three more break-back points in the 10th game to pocket the opening set with a scorching backhand winner that caught the line.
The world number six recovered from love-40 down in the opening game of the second set to hold and then rifled a backhand down the line to break Cibulkova again to go up 2-1.
The end was nigh for Cibulkova when Stosur nabbed a double break with two big forehands to charge to a 4-1 advantage.
The Australian broke Cibulkova again to close out the quarter-final in one hour and 25 minutes for her 18th win from 22 claycourt matches in 2012.
AAP
Tags: tennis, sport, france First posted June 05, 2012 23:51:07
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