Simona Halep topples Anabel Medina Garrigues to enter semis – Fes WTA 2012
Romanian number one, Simona Halep, slaughters the top seed, Anabel Medina Garrigues, with a breadstick at the Grand Prix SAR de La Princesse Lalla Meryem 2012 on Thursday. She jolted down a 6-2, 6-1 victory against the world number
26 to cruise into the final four at this WTA (Women’s Tennis Association) clay court event held in Fes, Morocco.
Halep showed brilliant skills and agility to stun the Spanish number one in one hour and 12 minutes. The Romanian avenged her loss at the Estoril WTA event last season but also levelled the head-to-head series by 1-1 against Medina
Garrigues.
"I played really well today," Halep commented in a court-side interview after the match. "She's a strong player and I went out there just trying to enjoy the match and play my best, which I did! I like this tournament a lot and
I hope I will play another good match in the semi-finals."
The fifth seed high-spiritedly entered the Royal Tennis Club de Fes and held her opening serve to level the scores at 1-1. After Medina Garrigues kept her second serve, the Romanian blasted powerful groundstrokes go on a five-game
tear. She swiped in her entire serves and capitalised on two out of five break chances to clobber a 6-2 score line.
Ranked 55th in the WTA Premier Rankings, Halep kept momentum rolling into the proceeding set and earned the desiderated break in the opening game to jump to a 2-0 lead. After the Spaniard held her serve in the third
game, the 20-year-old went on a four-game rampage and bagged the breadstick.
Overall, the Romanian spilled more double faults but manipulated a higher first serve share to cover it up. She also amazingly marked 23 out of 30 points on it and was never threatened with any breakpoint.
Next in queue for Halep is the Dutch qualifier, Kiki Bertens, who trashed her fellow qualifier, Garbine Muguruza Blanco, with a breadstick to set-up this encounter.
The third seed, Petra Cetkovska, also crashed out from the tournament later that day. She was edged out by the French lucky loser, Mathilde Johansson, in straight sets in 79 minutes.
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