Medina Garrigues Into SFs; Rezai Survives QF Marathon

Three of the Top 4 seeds and an unseeded player will make up the semifinals of the Grand Prix de SAR La Princesse Lalla Meryem after the quarters of the Tier IV event took place Friday.
 
Anabel Medina Garrigues stayed true to her top seeding and had the quickest win of the day, beating Olga Savchuk, 61 61. The 34th-ranked Spaniard broke the 90th-ranked Ukrainian six times during the win, improving to 2-0 in the pair's career head-to-head. She will now play her 19th career Sony Ericsson WTA Tour semifinal, having gone 10-8 in her first 18 (7-3 in 10 on clay).
 
Medina Garrigues will next face unseeded Hungarian Greta Arn, who dismissed unseeded Czech Petra Cetkovska in the last match of the day, 62 62. Arn has been to the semifinals of a Tour event just once before, claiming her first title on the clay of Estoril a year ago. Medina Garrigues and Arn play for the first time.
 
The other semifinal will also be a first-time meeting, pitting Gisela Dulko against Aravane Rezai. On Friday the No.2-seeded Dulko eased past No.7 seed Sorana Cirstea, 60 63, while No.4 seed Rezai earned a 57 75 75 victory over No.6 seed Alisa Kleybanova. The match was two minutes short of three hours.
 
The doubles semifinals also took the court on Friday. No.3 seeds Kleybanova and Ekaterina Makarova beat Johanna Larsson and Arina Rodionova, 61 63, and Cirstea and Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova took down Maria Kondratieva and Sophie Lefèvre in a hotly-contested match tie-break, 46 64 1614.

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