Young Flavia Pennetta of Italy made giant strides in her fledgling career to demolish fourth seed Mary Pierce of France in straight sets and storm into the semifinals of the $140,000 WTA tournament here today.Giant-killer Akiko Morigami of Japan also showed brilliance and brushed aside Silvija Talaja (Croatia) 6-4, 6-2 to book her berth in the last four stage.The 20-year-old Flavia halted the veteran Mary Pierce from the very first game itself and showed her mental toughness and talent to win the duel 7-6 (7-4), 6-3 while her senior partner accepted defeat in grace and bowed out of the singles event. Mary said her concentration was disturbed by sore throat.“I had throat infection and it was bothering a bit. Though I tried to play good shots I really couldn’t,” Mary said and hoped that she would be back in form for the doubles match.Flavia, who turns 21 this month end, showed aggression and control, blended them with intelligence and quick reflexes to take the first game. She gradually packed more power to win the next two games while her more experienced partner was trying to settle down.Mary won her first game with a powerful serve and her high drive shots enabled her to take the score to 4-5. The engaging duel touched new peak with the two European neighbours involved in long rallies at 5-5 which ended with a double fault by Flavia.The battle of attrition continued with both playing to their well worked out strategies. Mary tried to push her opponent to one flank and smash at the other flank to pick up points while Flavia with quicker reflexes dropped close to the net to catch her senior opponent off guard.The game slipped into tiebreak with the fairly good crowd backing Mary but Flavia had other plans. After running in close tandem till 4-4 Mary looked to lose her touch and the Italian let loose a decent drop shot to take the first set.The second set saw Flavia take the first game but Mary raised the hopes of her fans when she led 3-1. But she started slipping again and her anger and frustration were palpable.She booted the ball in disgust after losing a game and the chair umpire called her for bad manners.A cool Flavia, on the other hand, blitzed through the rest of the games to clinch the set and the match at 6-3.
