Nadal, Halep in Chinese final

Beijing, Oct. 7: Rafael Nadal will play for his sixth title of the year and Simona Halep took over the top ranking by reaching the final in the China Open.

Nadal defeated Grigor Dimitrov of Bulgaria 6-3, 46, 6-1 on Saturday in the semifinals. Halep beat Jelena Ostapenko 6-2, 6-4 to become the first Romanian no. 1 when the rankings are released on Monday.

The French Open and US Open champion is one of three men to win five titles this year, along with Roger Federer and Alexander Zverev.

The Spaniard will play either Zverev or Nick Kyrgios of Australia in Sunday’s final.

Nadal, the 2005 China Open champion, has a tour-leading 60 match wins in 2017. Nadal held serve at love in his first three service games against Dimitrov and saved two break points in the seventh game.

Dimitrov hit a backhand crosscourt winner to take the second set on Nadal’s serve in the 10th game. Nadal took immediate control of the third set, racing to a 4-0 lead.

Halep could have reached the No. 1 ranking earlier this year but was upset in the French Open final by Ostapenko in their first career meeting.

“Of course it’s the best moment in my life, and I want just to keep it,” Halep said in Beijing. “And I have few more dreams in my career. I tell you one, only one. To win a Grand Slam,” she added further.

Halep only had to reach the final this week — and not lose to Elina Svitolina of Ukraine in the final — to knock Garbine Muguruza from the top spot. Muguruza retired during her opening match on Monday because of a cold.

Svitolina was ousted by unseeded Caroline Garcia of France in a marathon quarterfinal encounter.

Halep will play the winner of the semifinal between Garcia and Petra Kvitova of the Czech Republic. The Romanian will be looking for her second title of the year after winning in Madrid. Sania Mirza and her doubles partner Shuai Peng’s campaign in the China Open ended after they suffered a 6-2, 1-6, 5-10 defeat in the semi-final against 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 semifinal stage last week to the same opponents, and they went on to win the title on that occasion.

While this time Sania and Peng lost in the super tiebreak, they went down in straight sets in their match that took place last week.