Barrois Upsets Top Seed Kleybanova, Meets Larsson In SFs

© Joao Lagos SportsKristina Barrois beat Alisa Kleybanova on Thursday.

World No. 71 Kristina Barrois will challenge No. 80-ranked Johanna Larsson in the Estoril Open semi-finals.

Barrois, a 29-year-old German, defeated top seed Alisa Kleybanova of Russia 6-4, 6-2 in 79 minutes.

There were five breaks of serve in the first set and Kleybanova led 4-1 at one point, but Barrois reeled in five straight games  to take the 45-minute opener.

Five games became nine in a row and a 4-0 second-set lead for Barrois as Kleybanova fell apart, winning just 46 per cent of total service points. Barrois improved to a 12-10 match record on the season.

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Earlier in the day, Larsson advanced to her third WTA semi-final. The 22-year-old Swede defeated No. 77-ranked Alla Kudryavtseva of Russia 6-2, 7-5 in 81 minutes on Central court.

Larsson dropped three points on serve in the 30-minute first set, including service breaks in the third and fifth games. She led 4-2 in the second set before Kudryavtseva won three of the next four games. But Larsson broke Kudryavtseva to love at 5-5, before calmly closing out to 15 on serve.

"In the beginning of the match I was playing really short in the court, but Alla was making some unforced errors during the game so I was able to get away with it," said Larsson. "But then in the second she slowed down a little bit and I had to play more balls, so it was more difficult."

Larsson, who reached a career-high World No. 64 in November last year, advanced to her first WTA final in July 2010 at Portoroz (l. to Chakvetadze) and made the Acapulco semi-finals (l. to Parra Santonja) in February this year.

"I always really love to play on clay, but my best results have been on hard court," said Larsson. "Now it's changing a little bit! I guess it doesn’t really matter on which surface the results are coming, as long as they are coming!"

Larsson recently worked with Joachim Johansson, the former ATP pro. "The coach that I had (Mattias Arvidsson), his wife has just had a baby, so now I have to find another solution.

"Pim Pim Johansson was also ending his career at the same time and said he maybe wanted to help me, so we met up before I went here and we practiced for two days, and we’ll also practice when I come back home from this week. We’ll see what happens and take it from there."