{"id":4778,"date":"2017-09-22T10:14:31","date_gmt":"2017-09-22T14:14:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/?p=4778"},"modified":"2017-09-22T10:14:31","modified_gmt":"2017-09-22T14:14:31","slug":"angelique-kerber-stuns-karolina-pliskova","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/2017\/09\/22\/angelique-kerber-stuns-karolina-pliskova\/","title":{"rendered":"Angelique Kerber Stuns Karol\u00edna Pl\u00ed\u0161kov\u00e1 To Claim Tokyo Semi-Final Berth"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Two-time Grand Slam champion <strong>Angelique Kerber<\/strong> claimed her biggest win of the year so far at the<strong> Toray Pan Pacific Open<\/strong> in <strong>Tokyo<\/strong>, by beating current World #4, <strong>Karol\u00edna Pl\u00ed\u0161kov\u00e1<\/strong>, 7-6, 7-5. It marks Kerber\u2019s only win over a player in the world\u2019s Top 20 this year, in what has been a <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/2017\/06\/18\/kerber-withdrawal-puts-cloud-wimbledon-preparations\/\" target=\"_self\">forgettable year for the German <\/a>so far. But could this be the step towards a big comeback from the former World #1?<br \/>\n<a id=\"dT4zCXYTSRFG3LbGTUixtg\" class=\"gie-single\" style=\"color: #a7a7a7; text-decoration: none; font-weight: normal !important; border: none; display: inline-block;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.co.uk\/detail\/851229654\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><script>window.gie=window.gie||function(c){(gie.q=gie.q||[]).push(c)};gie(function(){gie.widgets.load({id:'dT4zCXYTSRFG3LbGTUixtg',sig:'RLd8TrIDpYG23uERkoupdRVWKFKS6Df32Vc04LwPLlg=',w:'594px',h:'396px',items:'851229654',caption: true ,tld:'co.uk',is360: false })});<\/script><script src='\/\/embed-cdn.gettyimages.com\/widgets.js' charset='utf-8' async><\/script><\/p>\n<h3>Angelique Kerber Stuns Karol\u00edna Pl\u00ed\u0161kov\u00e1 To Claim Tokyo Semi-Final Berth<\/h3>\n<p>Hitting groundstrokes from down low, using angles to great effect, and capitalising on Pl\u00ed\u0161kov\u00e1\u2019s errors, Kerber demonstrated some of the form that saw her claim the 2016 <strong>Australian<\/strong> and <strong>US Open<\/strong> titles. She showed great mental strength at key moments in the match, successfully holding serve throughout, in contrast to what was an out-of-sorts performance from Pl\u00ed\u0161kov\u00e1. The Czech served poorly at key moments in the match, despite the fact that she actually won a greater proportion of points on her first serve than Kerber. Uncharacteristic double faults especially cost Pl\u00ed\u0161kov\u00e1 the win. It seemed as though she was still going through a period of mental transition following the departure of coach <strong>David Kotyza<\/strong>, following the US Open.<br \/>\n<a id=\"8porRwSeT9lfJ3JQsZ4Erw\" class=\"gie-single\" style=\"color: #a7a7a7; text-decoration: none; font-weight: normal !important; border: none; display: inline-block;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.co.uk\/detail\/851365082\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><script>window.gie=window.gie||function(c){(gie.q=gie.q||[]).push(c)};gie(function(){gie.widgets.load({id:'8porRwSeT9lfJ3JQsZ4Erw',sig:'6elb4B3aFfyUvf7kjRVutgxH5rWFpOrZsBBkS24bjDs=',w:'594px',h:'413px',items:'851365082',caption: true ,tld:'co.uk',is360: false })});<\/script><script src='\/\/embed-cdn.gettyimages.com\/widgets.js' charset='utf-8' async><\/script><br \/>\nNonetheless, the result could be monumental for Kerber and for the rest of her season. She admitted that she learnt a lot in terms of dealing with added pressure this year, and she has stuck with coach <strong>Torben Beltz<\/strong> throughout, which should be commended. Kerber will now face <strong>Anastasiya Pavlyuchenkova<\/strong> in the first semi-final of the tournament, and she should fancy her chances against the Russian. <strong>Garbi\u00f1e Muguruza<\/strong> (who beat <strong>Caroline Garcia<\/strong> 6-2 6-4, in the third quarterfinal or <strong>Caroline Wozniacki<\/strong> could await her in the final. Winning the title in Tokyo could be the first step to Angelique\u00a0Kerber regaining the form that saw <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/2016\/09\/10\/angelique-kerber-wins-us-open\/\" target=\"_self\">her clinch Grand Slam titles<\/a> last year. Her fans and her team will certainly hope that she does, especially with the imminent return of Serena Williams going into next season.<\/p>\n<p>Main Photo:<br \/>\n<a id=\"v8dEd5dbTGpdrMVC-n3vSw\" class=\"gie-single\" style=\"color: #a7a7a7; text-decoration: none; font-weight: normal !important; border: none; display: inline-block;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.co.uk\/detail\/851229882\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><script>window.gie=window.gie||function(c){(gie.q=gie.q||[]).push(c)};gie(function(){gie.widgets.load({id:'v8dEd5dbTGpdrMVC-n3vSw',sig:'iBTCHvdQctlmpwLRty-hJq54iHNMuV40DzG1HcTugwI=',w:'594px',h:'396px',items:'851229882',caption: true ,tld:'co.uk',is360: false })});<\/script><script src='\/\/embed-cdn.gettyimages.com\/widgets.js' charset='utf-8' async><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Two-time Grand Slam champion Angelique Kerber claimed her biggest win of the year so far at the Toray Pan Pacific Open in Tokyo, by beating current World #4, Karol\u00edna Pl\u00ed\u0161kov\u00e1, 7-6, 7-5. It marks Kerber\u2019s only win over a player in the world\u2019s Top 20 this year, in what has been a forgettable year for [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2047,"featured_media":4791,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[269,24,46,1841,1566,147,48,212,2090,15],"class_list":["post-4778","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-wta","tag-anastasia-pavlyuchenkova","tag-angelique-kerber","tag-caroline-wozniacki","tag-dominica-cibulkova","tag-garbi-muguruza","tag-karolina-pliskova","tag-tennis","tag-tokyo","tag-toray-pan-pacific-open","tag-wta"],"modified_by":"Sam Barker (Editor)","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4778","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2047"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4778"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4778\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4791"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4778"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4778"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4778"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}