Italian Sara Errani produced a determined performance against Samantha Stosur of Australia to beat her for the first time in career six meetings and reached the final of French Open 2012.

Stosur got a early break at 2-0 in the opening set of the match but got herself broken immediately in the next game. Both players displayed gritty tennis after that and no breaks were exchanged until 6-5, where Errani broke Stosur for the second time in the set and then successfully served out a set lead in the match.

Even though the Australian hammered 22 winners but also committed 12 unforced errors, which did not allow her to make a comeback in the first-set contest.

Match Cast: Stosur vs Errani

The second set saw the resurgence of Stosur in the match as she upped the level of her play and gave away only one game in the set to take the match into the deciding set. Stosur arrowed 6 aces and slammed 23 winners to over-power Errani in the set.

In the deciding set, Errani raced to 3-0 lead and it looked she might had a last laugh but Stosur refused to go without a fight and bounced back to level the scores at 3-3 in the set. The Italian got another break of serve at 5-3 and then served out for the match.

She now awaits the winner of second semi-final to be played between World No 2 Russian Maria Sharapova and World No 4 Petra Kvitova of Czech Republic.