Simona Halep outsmarts Dominika Cibulkova in the quarter-final clash – Brussels Open 2012
Romanian tennis sensation, Simona Halep, continues to stun everyone with her amazing performances at the Brussels Open this week. She hunted down another seeded opponent, Dominika Cibulkova, in the quarter-final round on Thursday,
settling the final score line at 0-6, 6-4, 6-3, in her favour.
Being a part of the WTA (Women’s Tennis Association) International Tour clay swing, the contest was played on the outdoor courts of the Royal Primerose Tennis Club in Brussels, Belgium. The unseeded Romanian youngster provided
sheer entertainment to the local crowd and came back from a one-set deficit to run the tables on the fourth seed Slovakian opponent. She took off her Brussels campaign by overthrowing the former world number one, Jelena Jankovic, in the opening round battle
and had carried on the same belligerence to book a pot in the semi-finals of the tournament on Thursday.
Cibulkova was rated as one of the hot favourites for winning the Brussels title but her hopes were brutally thrashed by Halep’s eye starling game play. The Slovakian number one had an explosive start in the opening set and nailed
three successive serve breaks to bag the set with a bagel. It appeared as if Cibulkova was well on course for a comprehensive straight sets win but it went the other way round.
Halep made a valiant comeback in the second set of the match and shifted the pressure on her superior ranked opponent. She got under the skin of Cibulkova with early serve breaks and continued with her sublime run to clinch the
second set at 6-4. Once getting into her winning groove, the unseeded Romanian kept hitting hard at the Slovakian and concluded her emphatic victory at 6-3 to reach the final-four of the tournament. She registered a total of seven out of 17 break points and
clinched 25 out of 58 points on her first serve to come out as the winner.
Halep is slated to face the other unseeded Swede contender, Sofia Arvidsson, in the semi-final round of the tournament on Friday. Unseeded Arvidsson overwhelmed the Pole qualifier, Urszula Radwanska, in the quarter-final brawl,
7-5, 6-4, to book a date with Halep in the semis.
Top seed hot favourite, Agnieszka Radwanska, also made it to the last four after comprehensively dumping the local wildcard entrant, Alison Van Uytvanck, 6-2, 6-1. The eight seeded Estonian, Kaia Kanepi, was the last one to earn
a semi-final spot at the Brussels Open and she outgunned the Bulgarian number one, Tsvetana Pironkova, 6-3, 6-1, on Thursday afternoon.
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