Kimberly Birrell is well aware of the power-packed threat posed by Adelaide International semifinal opponent Victoria Mboko, but the popular Queenslander believes she possesses tools of her own to counter the rising Canadian star on Day 5 at The Drive.<\/p>\n
Birrell, a wildcard at the WTA 500 tournament, survived cramps and three hours of titanic battle to edge Romanian qualifier Jaqueline Cristian 5-7 6-1 7-5 and progress to her first semifinal at that level.<\/p>\n
After recovering from that gruelling baseline rally-a-thon against the grinding Cristian, Birrell plans to fight fire with a different form of fire when she faces Mboko, with a spot in the final on the line.<\/p>\n
“She hits the ball huge,” Birrell said. “Her quality of shot and the way she’s able to reproduce it is impressive.<\/p>\n
“She’s got a good serve and weapons.\u00a0 But I think I do too – I’ve got my own weapons up my sleeve.<\/p>\n
“My return is one of my best attributes, so I definitely will not shy away from her serve and I’ll try to take it to her.<\/p>\n
“You never know what can happen on the day.”<\/p>\n
No.8 seed Mboko overcame a mid-match stagger to dethrone reigning Adelaide and Australian Open champion Madison Keys 6-4 4-6 6-2.<\/p>\n
It was the 19-year-old Canadian’s fifth three-setter in as many matches – including the United Cup – since arriving in Australia.<\/p>\n
She has met Birrell once, in the first round of last year’s Canadian Open, which Mboko took in straight sets en route to her landmark, career-changing maiden Masters triumph.<\/p>\n
Mboko enjoyed the support of her home fans on that occasion in Montreal.<\/p>\n
It will be the complete reverse of that this time, a backdrop Mboko is ready for.<\/p>\n
“She’s a super solid player,” she said of Birrell. “I’m expecting a big fight tomorrow. “She also has the crowd advantage, so that’s good for her.<\/p>\n
“I’ve played so many times when the crowd’s against me. It’s a part of the sport and it happens.<\/p>\n
“I mean, every player who plays in their country is going to have the home crowd support, so it’s completely normal. At the end of the day I just want to focus on what I have to do on court.”<\/p>\n
Third seed Mirra Andreeva thumped Australian hope Maya Joint 6-2 6-0 on Thursday night to set up a semifinal date with ninth-seeded Diana Shnaider<\/p>\n
Men’s No. 2 seed Tommy Paul will face eighth-seeded Tomas Machac after both advanced with straight-sets quarterfinal victories.<\/p>\n
Paul defeated Aussie hope Aleksandar Vukic 6-3 6-2 in barely an hour, while Machac was too good for Spaniard Jaume Munar 6-4 6-4.<\/p>\n
Machac holds a 2-1 head-to-head advantage, all three best-of-three stoushes going the distance.<\/p>\n
Paul is ready for the unique skill set that Machac brings to the table.<\/p>\n
“He’s very athletic, very fast,” Paul said. “He does have that Czech backhand down-the-line that all of them hit so well, But I think he’s a bit more dynamic for the most part.<\/p>\n
“He’s always somebody who I’ve had amazing matches with, so I’ve got to be ready and prepared.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Kimberly Birrell is well aware of the power-packed threat posed by Adelaide International semifinal opponent Victoria Mboko, but…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":415892,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[565],"tags":[193177,64,63,151677,72820,85,747],"class_list":["post-415891","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-adelaide-international-tennis-tournament","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-kimberly-birrell","tag-news-article","tag-sports","tag-tennis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/415891","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=415891"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/415891\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/415892"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=415891"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=415891"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=415891"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}