Romania’s Simona Halep rallied for a 3-6, 6-1, 6-1 victory over Svetlana Kuznetsova on Friday to set up a semifinal showdown with Angelique Kerber at the WTA Montreal tournament.
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Makarova and Vesnina will attempt to win their first championship of 2016 in their fourth final appearance against the all-Romanian team of Simona Halep and Monica Niculescu.
Halep won the toss and elected to receive.
From this point of the match opener, the 21-year old Madison Keys wins four consecutive games to seal the first frame after twenty-seven minutes. She’s a very impressive player and the tough victories over Williams and Pavlyuchenkova will have prepared her for a matchup in the semifinals.
“I knew that it’s going to be tough because I don’t get rhythm from her”, Halep said. “Mixing a lot. I was reading the game well, good in defence and found a way to come back and attack”. Congratulations to Madison for a great week and I wish you the best for the future.
“Maybe that’s why I kept winning”. But I knew I had to be strong with my legs. “I was doing everything, I was fighting today”.
Kucova managed to keep pace until the sixth game when Keys converted the second of two break-point opportunities for a 4-2 lead. She won nine straight points in one run late in the match.
Halep gave credit to her opponent for taking her out of her comfort zone. “But then in the third set, I said that ‘I have to calm down, to just go and play like I did in first set – aggressive, to open the court, to try to finish the points with winners'”. She called the Bucharest event “a small tournament” that nonetheless showed she was playing strong tennis.
“I tried to put the ball away from her, just to make her run”, added Halep. “I think I did it pretty well, and she missed”.
“I’m exhausted”, she added with a smile. She arrived last week in time to take part in the 40th anniversary of the 1976 Montreal Olympics.
“In the second set, when I lost the serve at 3-2, I was a little bit disappointed”.
“I was a little bit nervous at the beginning of the match and I didn’t really feel the ball. I think I was just going for some shots too early today”. Keys looks for her third career title and has never played in a final on hard court. Reaching the finals here lifted her from No. 12 to No. 9.
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Halep went on to win the tiebreak 7-2, then broke early in the second set to ride out the win.
