Halep, Muguruza cruise into fil

Ohio, Aug 20: Romania’s Simo Halep brushed aside American Sloane Stephens 6-2, 6-1 to advance to the fil of the Western & Southern Open here on Saturday.

The second seed, Halep, who had reached the semifils of this hard-court tennis event for the third straight year, showed her superiority from the baseline by completely domiting the second-serve points, reports Efe. Halep won 91 percent (10 out of 11) of those points in her service games and 83 percent (10 out of 12) on return.

In Sunday’s fil, she will take on the fourth-seeded Garbine Muguruza who claimed a surprisingly easy 6-3, 6-2 win over Czech top seed and world No. 1 Karoli Pliskova in Saturday’s first semifil.

Halep will become World No.1 for the first time if she can defeat Muguruza to capture her maiden title in Cincinti.

Muguruza rrowly avoided defeat in a third-round 6-4, 3-6, 7-6 (7-3) victory on Thursday over American Madison Keys and needed two hours and 45 minutes to get past Russia’s Svetla Kuznetsova 6-2, 5-7, 7-5 in Friday’s quarterfils.

But she was nearly flawless on Saturday, not losing her serve once and breaking Pliskova four times. IANS