USA TODAY International Edition
Halep cruises into Australian Open semifinals
MELBOURNE, Australia – Wimbledon champion Simona Halep needed only 53 minutes to beat Anett Kontaveit 6- 1, 6- 1 Wednesday and seal a place in the Australian Open women’s semifinals for the second time in three years.
No. 28- seeded Kontaveit held the opening game at love at Melbourne Park, but Halep was relentless in an 11game winning streak that took the match away from her Estonian rival. Halep worked for every point and strangled Kontaveit’s opportunities.
In the second set, Halep won the longest rally of the match – a 25- shot exchange – and then served an ace on the way to 5- 0 lead.
Halep reached the Australian Open final in 2018, losing in three sets to Caroline Wozniacki, a result she attributes to her winning the 2018 French Open and her second major in 2019 at Wimbledon.
The fourth- seeded Halep will next play either two- time major winner Garbiñe Muguruza or No. 30 Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova in the semifinals.
❚ Fed Cup: Teenager Coco Gauff was included in the U. S. Fed Cup team for the first time Tuesday, joining the likes of Serena Williams for a qualifying series against Latvia next week.
Gauff, 15, is set to become the second youngest American to play in the competition behind Jennifer Capriati, who made her debut at 14 in 1990.
Gauff is expected to enter the top 50 in the rankings for the first time after her run to the fourth round of the Australian Open, where she beat defending champion Naomi Osaka along the way.
Australian Open semifinalist Sofia Kenin, Alison Riske and doubles specialist Bethanie Mattek- Sands were also included in the roster announced by the U. S. Tennis Association.
The Americans will play Latvia in a five- match series on indoor hard courts in Everett, Washington, on Feb. 7- 8. The winner advances to a 12- nation Fed Cup tournament in April, a revamped format for the competition.
Williams made her Fed Cup debut in 1999, helping the U. S. team win the title, more than four years before Gauff was born.
The Latvia team features No. 33 Anasasija Sevastova and No. 45 Jelena Ostapenko.