Taiwan’s Chan Yung-jan yesterday advanced to her second consecutive doubles final in China, while Romanian second seed Simona Halep advanced to the singles final and claimed the No. 1 spot in the world rankings.
Top seeds Chan and Martina Hingis had to rally from a set down before completing a second consecutive semi-final victory over third seeds Sania Mirza of India and Peng Shuai of China at the China Open.
The Taiwanese-Swiss duo saved four of eight break points and converted four of six to complete a 2-6, 6-1, 10-5 victory in 1 hour, 16 minutes at the National Tennis Center in Beijing.
Photo: EPA
The top seeds face fourth seeds Timea Babos and Andrea Hlavackova in today’s final after the Hungarian-Czech duo defeated Russian second seeds Ekaterina Makarova and Elena Vesnina 7-5, 6-7 (4/7), 10-8 in 1 hour, 57 minutes in the earlier semi-final.
Chan and Hingis will be aiming for their ninth title of the season after their victories in Mallorca, Indian Wells, Madrid, Rome, Eastbourne, Cincinnati, at the US Open last month and in Wuhan last weekend.
Halep is to take over as the new No. 1 in the WTA world rankings after progressing to the finals with a dominant 6-2 6-4 victory over Latvia’s Jelena Ostapenko.
Photo: AFP
The Romanian avenged this year’s French Open final defeat to the hard-hitting Ostapenko with a ruthless display of all-round tennis that saw her send down five aces and 14 winners to oust the 20-year-old in 75 minutes.
The 26-year-old takes over the top spot from Spaniard Garbine Muguruza and will become the first Romanian to head the rankings when the updated standings are released tomorrow.
“It’s very emotional, I think it’s the first time I cried on court,” Halep said in a post-match interview. “It’s amazing that I could do this. My team, everyone at home... is watching and I want to thank everyone. It’s my special day.”
Ostapenko, for her part, put on a lackluster performance and recorded 32 unforced errors as she failed to make any inroads on her opponent’s solid defense.
Halep also broke the Latvian’s serve four times, including in the first game of the match.
The Latvian showed some resistance in the second set to forge a 4-3 lead, but Halep won three consecutive games to seal a victory she will remember for the rest of her life.
WTA chief executive officer Steve Simon and tour president Micky Lawler presented Halep, who had come close to topping the rankings on three different occasions earlier this year, with a memento to mark her achievement after the match.
Halep will be looking for her second tournament victory of the season in what will be her fifth final of the year against either 12th-seeded Petra Kvitova of the Czech Republic or unseeded Frenchwoman Caroline Garcia today.
MEN’s SEMI-FINALS
AFP, BEIJING
Rafael Nadal was yesterday forced into a third set before the world No. 1 piled the pressure on Grigor Dimitrov to reach the final of the China Open.
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, is to face German prodigy Alexander Zverev or temperamental Australian Nick Kyrgios in today’s final.
Dimitrov battled back from a set down to take it to a deciding third set.
However, with the crowd behind him and Dimitrov visibly tiring, the 16-time Grand Slam champion Nadal stepped up a gear to ram home his superiority.
JAPAN OPEN
AP, TOKYO
David Goffin reached a second straight Japan Open final and is to meet Adrian Mannarino, who beat top-seeded Marin Cilic yesterday.
Goffin won a tense baseline battle with Diego Schwartzman 7-6 (3), 7-6 (6), while Mannarino won 6-7 (5), 6-4, 6-0 in his first career win against a top-five opponent.
A Schwartzman double fault at 6-6 in the second-set tiebreaker gifted Goffin a chance to serve for the match, which he converted.
With no breaks in the first set, Goffin took the initiative in the fifth game of the second. He served for the match at 5-4 — only for Schwartzman to break back.
Goffin also held the upper hand in the tiebreaker at 3-2, before Schwartzman broke back two points later.
The victory extends Goffin’s winning streak to eight matches, including four in China’s Shenzhen last week where he won his first title in more than three years.
“When you’ve won a lot of matches you know how to play the important moment — you have a great feeling on court, confidence,” Goffin said. “You know what you have to do, when to go for the shots or when to play solid. It’s really clear in your head and you trust in your hands.”
The Belgian now stands at No. 10 in the Race to London rankings. With the injured Novak Djokovic and Stan Wawrinka ruled out, 10th place is good enough to secure a place at the end-of-season showpiece.
Cilic trailed 3-0 in the first-set tiebreaker before clawing his way back into contention. He broke to go 6-5 ahead with a backhand half-volley drop shot, then served out with an ace down the middle.
Mannarino served at 5-3 in the second set, but failed to hold his nerve before breaking to love and forcing a decider in which Cilic folded spectacularly.
“I don’t know if he served worse or I returned better, but it changed a lot from the middle of the second set — then I was dangerous in every service game of Marin’s,” Mannarino said.
“We played a lot of long rallies and he was playing really well from the back. In the last set and a half he didn’t miss much,” Cilic said.
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