Halep, Wozniacki advance to Australian Open final

No. 1 will be on the line in more ways than one in the Australian Open women’s final on Saturday.

Both top-seeded Simona Halep of Romania and second-seeded Caroline Wozniacki will be aiming for a first career major title, and the winner of the match will emerge with the world’s No. 1 ranking.

Wozniacki beat unseeded Elise Mertens of Belgium 6-3, 7-6 (2) on Thursday to reach the final in Melbourne. Halep emerged with a 6-3, 4-6, 9-7 victory over 21st-seeded Angelique Kerber of Germany.

Halep, 26, survived a wild third set. She blew two match points while serving at 5-4, lost her serve to fall behind 6-5, then saved two match points to even the set at 6-6.

Eventually, Halep’s aggressive groundstrokes proved the difference as she closed out a 2-hour, 23-minute victory.

“It definitely was very tough,” Halep said in an on-court interview just after the match. “I’m shaking now. I’m really emotional because I (won) this match.”

Asked about surviving two Kerber match points, Halep said, “I just had confidence in myself. ... I decided ... that I would fight for every point. I will go to the end. I will give everything in this tournament and then I will rest. So now, I will have a big rest after this tournament.”

Halep’s only prior major finals were defeats in the 2014 French Open to Russia’s Maria Sharapova and the 2017 French Open to Latvia’s Jelena Ostapenko.

In 42 previous Grand Slam events, Wozniacki reached the final just twice, both times at the U.S. Open. She fell in straight sets to Belgium’s Kim Clijsters in 2009, and she lost in straight sets to Serena Williams in 2014.

Her best previous result in Melbourne was a semifinal appearance in 2011, a match in which Wozniacki blew a match point in the second set and fell to Li Na.

Wozniacki, 27, cruised through the first set against Mertens in 40 minutes, and she jumped ahead 5-3 in the second set. Mertens then held serve at love, and she broke Wozniacki’s serve to even the score.

After Mertens again held at love for a 6-5 lead, she grabbed two set points on Wozniacki’s serve but couldn’t convert either. Wozniacki survived a 13-point game to force the tiebreaker, in which she jumped on top 3-0 and pulled away.

Meanwhile, a business-like Marin Cilic doused the fire of Kyle Edmund before crushing the ailing Briton 6-2, 7-6 (4), 6-2 to become Croatia’s first Australian Open finalist on Thursday.

Sixth seed Cilic, who won his quarterfinal when Rafa Nadal retired hurt in the fifth set, was again ruthless against a reduced opponent, ending 49th-ranked Edmund’s dream run after just two hours and 18 minutes at a floodlit Rod Laver Arena.

Sealing the match with a thumping serve, the 2014 U.S. Open champion will bid for his second grand slam title against Friday’s winner of Roger Federer and South Korea’s rising star Chung Hyeon.

The 21-year-old Hyeon has enjoyed an amazing run over the last two weeks and if he can get past Federer on Friday, it would ensure a Melbourne final without the Swiss, Novak Djokovic, Andy Murray or Rafael Nadal for the first time since 2005.

In fact, barring 2014 when Stan Wawrinka won the title, no player apart from the quartet has even been involved in the men’s final at Melbourne Park since 2008. (Reuters)