SIMONA HALEP BECOMES WORLD NO 1
ROMANIAN BEATS OSTAPENKO TO ENTER CHINA OPEN FINAL
BEIJING: Emotional Simona Halep called it the best day of her life as she surged to number one in the world for the first time after reaching the China Open final on Saturday. The Romanian defeated Latvia’s Jelena Ostapenko 6-2, 6-4 in their semi-final.
Her ousting of Spaniard Garbine Muguruza at the top of the women’s game will be officially confirmed on Monday when the latest rankings are released.
The 26-year-old Halep is the fifth woman to hold top spot this year, but the first Romanian in the history of the WTA.
“My dream is true now, in that moment you cannot believe 100 percent that it’s happening, so I was in tears a little bit,” she said.
SANIA-PENG LOSE
BEIJING: Sania Mirza and her doubles partner Peng Shuai’s campaign in the China Open ended after they suffered a 6-2, 1-6, 5-10 defeat in the semi-final to Martina Hingis and Chan Yung-jan.
Swiss veteran Hingis and her her Taiwanese partner will take on Timea Babos and Andrea Hlavackova in the final. Incidentally, Mirza and Peng had lost in the semi-final stage last week to the same opponents.
NADAL IN FINAL
BEIJING: Rafael Nadal was forced into a third set before the world No 1 piled the pressure on Grigor Dimitrov to reach the final of the China Open on Saturday. The 31-year-old Spaniard, enjoying a late-career flourish and chasing a sixth title this season, beat off the Bulgarian third seed 6-3, 4-6, 6-1 in their semi-final on Beijing’s outside hard courts.
Nadal, good friends with Dimitrov, will face German prodigy Alexander Zverev or temperamental Australian Nick Kyrgios in Sunday’s final. Dimitrov battled back from a set down to take it to a deciding third set. But with the crowd behind him, the 16-time Grand Slam champion Nadal stepped up a gear to ram home his superiority.
CILIC UPSET
TOKYO: Unseeded Frenchman Adrian Mannarino upset top seed Marin Cilic 6-7(5), 6-4, 6-0 in the Japan Open semi-finals on Saturday to reach his first ATP 500 final. Mannarino, 29, will face fourth seed David Goffin after the in-form Belgian eked out a 7-6(3) 7-6(6) victory over Argentina’s Diego Schwartzman in the first semi-final. Cilic’s powerful groundstrokes gave him a 5-3 lead in the first set but Mannarino fought back to force a tiebreak.