Five days after ending a drought of more than two years by winning an ATP event in Washington, Monfils took his hot form with him north of the border.
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Pavlyuchenkova beat fourth-seeded Agnieszka Radwanska of Poland.
The Serbian admitted he was lucky to advance after saving seven of eight break points.
“Mentally I am pretty strong and I am a little bit disappointed in the second set I gave up at 3-2”. “My serve just wasn’t right today”.
“I want to say thank you to my team”. “Her ability to get that extra ball and become the one that’s in charge of the point is what she’s so good at”.
Madison Keys is coming off a straight sets win over Kristina Kucova that took 15 games to decide. I must be pleased with the way I hung in there.
Halep will face ninth-seeded Svetlana Kuznetsova, a 7-6 (2), 6-3 victor over 12th-seeded Petra Kvitova of the Czech Republic. “It showed me that I was ready, aggressive, moving really well. I did it and it was a great win for me against her”.
“I played some high-quality tennis this week – I can’t forget those two matches – but two matches is not a whole tournament”, Bouchard said. That helped me a lot in singles; I had tough opponents there.
Serena Williams is still the number 1 player in the world with 8,300 points and 16 played tournaments, followed by German Angelique Kerber with 6,745 points. Halep appears to be back after some recent struggles early in the season and could find her way in the No. 2 spot again if she stays on this path. Halep has won 10 of her last 12 matches on hard court.
The second seed from Germany advanced to the semi-finals on Friday with a thorough 6-2, 6-2 victory over unseeded Russian Daria Kasatkina to reach the final four without a twinge from the elbow that forced her to withdraw from a match last week in Sweden and that put her Rogers Cup participation in doubt. Halep, the No. 5 seed was the finalist of the tournament a year ago, reports Efe. “It feels like being in Europe, like I’ve said many times”.
The big-serving Keys, who is also known for her powerful game from the baseline, made a string of unforced errors to gift Halep a 6-1 lead in the tiebreak before losing the opening set after hitting a backhand wide.
In last year’s final in Toronto, Halep retired in the third set with an illness, handing the win to unseeded Belinda Bencic of Switzerland.
“She had a very emotional week”, said the Rock Island native Keys.
“There’s only one person who is going to walk away and be completely happy with this week”, the American said.
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In a set filled with service breaks, it was only fitting Halep and Keys began the match exchanging breaks, with both players looking slightly nervous early on.
