Against Keys, she struggled with her serve.
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Halep won the toss and elected to receive.
Once Halep shook off some early nerves, she was able to pressure the Russian veteran s serve and was rewarded when Kuznetsova surrendered an early break in the second set with a double fault.
The match was effectively decided in the first set tiebreak after both players had produced nervy, erratic tennis over the first 12 games.
For the match, she put 55 per cent of her first serves in play and won a disappointing 51 per cent of those points. We had a lot of tough matches in the last few months, and always long ones. “Not like me, with a lot of ups and downs”. Congratulations to Madison for a great week and I wish you the best for the future.
“Maybe that’s why I kept winning”. However, I can’t bet against the experience of Halep.
“I don’t know why I served so well. I was doing everything, I was fighting today”.
Konta was left to rue her wastefulness, only converting one of five break-point opportunities in her straight-sets loss to Kucova.
Halep gave credit to her opponent for taking her out of her comfort zone.
“I think I played really a pretty good tournament”, said Keys, who was to fly out Sunday night to begin preparations for the Olympics. She hit 9 aces, including one that was clocked at 193 km/h. I just tried to be more aggressive. “But she can miss sometimes”. But it also helped me to play some doubles matches because I practiced the return, the serve.
Kucova said the key to facing Halep is to stay calm.
“My elbow is feeling much better”, Kerber said. It’s going to be a big challenge for me. Then it was Halep making angry swings at the ground with her racquet after a shot into the net as Kerber held service for 4-3.
Of the upcoming match, Kerber added: “It’s going to be tough”.
“I’ll say it’s the same as (against Williams) – I backed off in the second set and in the third set I had to step up”, said Keys.
“I’m really looking forward to playing against Simona again”. I wish today went a little bit differently.
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The 10th seed set up a semi-final against top seed Novak Djokovic, who overcame poor serving and 33 unforced errors to beat Czech Tomas Berdych 7-6(6) 6-4 in an error-riddled match. The winners shared $142,375 while losers split $71,920.
