Daria Kasatkina was probably the story of the day in St. Petersburg after defeating Dominika Cibulkova 4-6, 7-5, 6-3 to make the semifinals in the St. Petersburg Ladies Trophy. It was a high quality encounter with quite a lot long and great rallies, as well as some stunning exchanges.

Cibulkova comes from a break down to win the first

Kasatkina was the one to get off to a leading start after breaking her opponent's serve in the very first game, and then consolidating to lead 2-0. The youngster entered the match really fresh and was running for every ball, usually finding great angles which troubled her opponent, whose forehand nevertheless was decent from the start. However, some great serving from both would result in a 3-1 lead for Kasatkina.

Not long thereafter, Cibulkova woke up and began to put the pressure on her opponent from the receiving end, punishing every weak serve in sight. Like this, she took the break back for 3-3 before after another series of breaks the score became 4-all. Both women were serving well and they were enjoying some stunning exchanges.  The Slovak was most of the time the aggressor, but the Russian's defense was exceptional and did not give her much time to seize the points.

After a coaching timeout for Kasatkina before the eighth game, Cibulkova stepped up a bit as she felt it was the time to close it. Finding her rhythm on her opponent’s serve, she duplicated the recipe of  successfully breaking Kasatkina and seized her opportunities in the tenth game after a hold to close the opening set 6-4. It was a great set of tennis from both women, with both keeping the error numbers really low. The difference was that Kasatkina's second serve was proved to be more vulnerable in the end,as she had a worse first serve percentage as well.

Kasatkina survives Cibulkova comeback to force a decider

The 18-year-old was the one with a head start once again in the second part of the match, breaking early before consolidating the break to go up 2-0. Kasatkina's tennis was stunning at that stage in the match -- she was finding some incredible angles with her strokes. From there, the Slovak would barely hold on to her service games until 4-2, as Kasatkina was  handling her opponent’s down the line returns in a great way. Then, the Russian would break once again and at love, putting great depth on her shots while Cibulkova seemed to have run out of steam.

Even though it seemed that the youngster had the set in her bag, she was not able once again to hold her nerve and close it out. She got many chances in her serve but she was too nervous and at the same time, she landed more second serves while her rushed her shots, consequently making them shorter. The Slovak jumped at the chance and put on display her peak play to crawl her way back to 5-all as her Russian counterpart struggled to close out the set. Not only Kasatkina was failing victim of her nerves, but the former top 10 player seemed rejuvenated. The upcoming games were crucial.

To her own sake, this was an alarm for Kasatkina. With the help of a double fault from Cibulkova, she found again her previous play with the solid serving and the stunning angles she produced earlier in the set to close out the set 7-5.

The match had become dramatic and a lot physical. The youngster's first serve percentage had improved in the second set and again, she had a really low number of unforced errors. In particular, her serve helped her a lot as well as the fact that she was able to read her counterpart's return.

Kasatkina prevails over a tired Cibulkova

Cibulkova started the set the more aggressive of the two and was determined to win this as soon as possible. However, stepping up brings errors as well, especially if you have a player like Kasatkina who was as solid as a rock at the baseline. The first four games were even holds and were showing that the match would be a really competitive battle between two great fighters.

Though, as the set progressed, the former Australian Open finalist was crumbling more and more mainly because she was fatigued and falling victim to her opponent's clever game. The 18-year-old quickly took advantage of it, returning really well to break and find herself in the same position as in the previous set, 5-2 up. She would once again fail to serve the set out after hitting an untimely double fault and some monster returns by Cibulkova, who was giving everything she had left in the tank.  Everyone was expecting a second set repeat, but the Russian proved them wrong, breaking in emphatic style with great returns to close the match and move on to the semifinals.

The youngster was jumping all over the court. She had made her second Premier semifinal and by Monday, she would make her top 50 debut. It was a stunning performance. The Russian was endlessly consistent, showing her great defensive game as well as her ability to turn defense into offense. Also, as the match progressed, she was serving and returning better and better. It was a high quality encounter and an amazing performance by the 18-year-old Russian who made her name even more well known.

Statistics

The match was really close and this is proven by the statistics who were even in just about every category. The statistic we can say that gave the Russian the win is her stability behind her second serve as she found the antidote to her opponent's returns. In addition, she had better stats in her serve. Overall, it was a really consistent, with some really entertaining moments of brilliance, and a performance that will deservedly send Kasatkina into the top 50.

Kasatkina will now face number one seed and junior rival Belinda Bencic who prevailed over Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova in three sets in a match that finished at a quarter past midnight.