Two-time champion Simona Halep advanced to the semifinals of the women’s tennis tournament in Dubai (UAE) with a prize pool of 768,680 USD.
The former world’s number one eliminated the eighth in the scheme Ons Jabeur (Tunisia) with 2-0 (6:4, 6:3) in 82 minutes. Simona Halep is currently 23rd in the WTA rankings, and her victory is 11th in the first 12 games since the beginning of the season. In a dispute for a place in the final, the Romanian will play against Jelena Ostapenko from Latvia, who saved a match ball and defeated Petra Kvitova from the Czech Republic with 2-1 (5:7, 7:5, 7:6) in 2:40 hours. In the third set, Petra Kvitova took the lead with 5:4, but in the next game, she failed to win her serve game.
The tiebreak was extremely dramatic, but Jelena Ostapenko managed to close the match with her fourth matchball.
Czech Marketa Vondrousova, Tokyo 2020 Olympics runner-up, is also a semifinalist in Dubai after winning against Ukraine’s Dayana Yastremska with 2-0 (7:5, 6:4) in 1:41 hours.
Marketa Vondrousova is the third qualifier in history to reach the semifinals of the competition. Her next opponent is the Russian Veronika Kudermetova (Russia), who defeated Jil Teichmann (Switzerland) with 2-1 (6:2, 5:7, 6:4) in 2:23 hours.
