MEANWHILE, IN MONTREAL . . .
Simona Halep reached the women’s Rogers Cup final for the second straight year by upsetting Angelique Kerber for a shot at Madison Keys,
MONTREAL— It will be Simona Halep versus Madison Keys in Sunday’s final of the $2.4-million women’s Rogers Cup.
Halep, the fifth seed, defeated No. 2 Angelique Kerber of Germany 6-0, 3-6, 6-2 in a semifinal Saturday at Uniprix Stadium to reach the championship match for the second year in a row. The Romanian dominated the first half of the match, saw Kerber gain momentum midway through the second set, then took over again in the third.
The 10th-seeded Keys needed only 50 minutes to end the Cinderella story of qualifier Kristina Kucova with a 6-2, 6-1 victory. Kucova, the world’s 112th-ranked player, had knocked off two seeded players as well as local favourite Eugenie Bouchard en route to the semifinal in the best performance of her career.
Halep has won two of three matches against Keys, including in the round of 16 at Wimbledon.
“She hits the ball very strong,” Halep said of Keys. “Her serve is good.
“It will be not like today, with many rallies. In Wimbledon, the points were shorter. So I expect that I will not have a good rhythm because she can hit a winner and you don’t see the ball. But she can miss sometimes. I have to stay focused for every ball.”
Her match with Kerber was a backand-forth affair, with only a few games where both players looked sharp at once.
In last year’s final in Toronto, Halep retired in the third set because of a heat-related illness, handing the win to unseeded Belinda Bencic. Her march to that final included a win over Kerber.
Halep has beaten Kerber all four times they’ve met on hard courts, but lost their two meetings on other surfaces.
There were more empty seats than usual for a semifinal on centre court, but a large contingent of flag-waving Romanian fans turned out to back Halep.
Kerber, the Australian Open champion, seemed lost in the opening set, losing her first two service games thanks to an erratic serve that included three double faults. More than once, the left-hander made gestures of frustration on court after misfired shots.
She gave up another break point on a double fault to fall behind 2-3 in the second set, but then broke back. It was Halep making angry swings that didn’t quite connect with the ground after a shot into the net as Kerber held service for 4-3.
Kerber won six games in a row, including a service break to start the third set, but then Halep took over again with a break to tie it 2-2 and rolled to victory.
“In the second set when I lost the serve at 3-2, I was a little bit disappointed,” said Halep. “Also, the nerves were very big.
“I don’t know why, but I couldn’t manage that moment, and I can say I gave up a little bit mentally. But then in the third set, I said that I have to calm down, to just go and play like I did in first set — aggressive, to open the court, to try to finish the points with winners.”
Kucova, 26, will break into the top 100 in the WTA rankings for the first time. The $120,140 paycheque for reaching the semifinals is $40,000 more than she had earned in the last six months on tour.