WOZNIACKI AND HALEP’S TARGET IS TO WIN A SLAM

SIMONA HALEP and Caroline Wozniacki are members of a small club of players to have been world No 1 without winning a Grand Slam. One of them will be very happy to leave it tomorrow when the top two seeds contest the women’s final of the Australian Open, with the victor asserting themselves as the current No 1. Halep hauled herself through an outstanding semi-final when she saved two match points before beating Angelique Kerber 6-3, 4-6, 9-7 on the Rod Laver Arena. When the Romanian missed two match points of her own at 5-4 in the decider it looked like she would fail to get across the line again, but she will now have the chance to go one better than at Roland Garros, where she was runner-up in 2014 and last spring. Kerber, who can retrieve any lost cause around the back of the court, looked almost groggy by the end of a gruelling encounter. Her excellent form here had made her look the likely winner, despite a lower ranking of 16. Wozniacki earlier snuffed out the challenge of the talented Belgian Elise Mertens with a 6-3, 7-6 (7-2) victory. In the second round she was 5-1 down in the third set against Jana Fett of Croatia and has made the most of her second life here. Having become engaged before Christmas, the title would round off a remarkable few months for Wozniacki. Scotland’s Aidan McHugh, a 17-year-old from Glasgow, was today contesting the semi-finals of the junior Australian Open. Appropriately enough, given events of the fortnight, he became the first GB player to reach this stage of a junior Grand Slam since Kyle Edmund did the same at Wimbledon 2013. McHugh brushed aside Australia’s Rinky Hijikata 6-2, 6-4 in their quarter-final. He was due to meet the sixth seed, Taipei’s Chun Hsin Tseung. Teenager McHugh made a brief appearance on court at the Andy Murray-Roger Federer charity exhibition in Glasgow in November, when Murray offered him his racket to play a few points versus the Swiss maestro. ‘Roger was really nice afterwards, he was laughing about it,’ said McHugh. ‘I did tell him that I would get him next time. I will need to try and do well quickly if I’m going to get a chance to play him, unless he is still going at 50.’