Saarland: On a night of quarter-finals, top-seeded Carolina Marin opened the SaarLorLux Open women’s singles program Friday with a virtuous performance, outlasting No. 5 seed Qi Xuefei of France 21-12, 21-18 in 37 minutes to reach the semifinals.
Marin will face No. 3 seed Kirsty Gilmour of Scotland on Saturday.
Gilmour, on the other hand, was having a little drama against the No. 7 seed Lianne Tan of Belgium. Tan took the first set 21-15 before Gilmour forced a decider by claiming the second set 21-17.
In a one-sided third-set, Gilmour lost just 8 points to Tan before trashing the Belgium player 21-8 to march into the semifinals.
Marin held a commanding 7-1 lead in her rivalry over Gilmour. It will be interesting to see if Gilmour is able to turn the table against Marin on Saturday.
Mark Caljouw of Netherlands became the only seeded player left in the men’s singles category, when the No. 3 seed overcame Ivan Rusev of Bulgaria 21-7, 21-6 in just 25 minutes.
Caljouw will take on Brian Yang of Canada for a spot in the final.
Toma Junior Popov of France and Ditlev Jaeger Holm of Denmark will face-off against each other in another men’s singles semi-finals.
