Halep eases past Jabeur to reach Dubai semifinals

Two-time champion Simona Halep of Romania charged into the semifinals of the Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships on Thursday, defeating No.8 seed Ons Jabeur of Tunisia 6-4, 6-3.

Former World No.1 Halep, currently ranked No.23, took an hour and 20 minutes to fend off 10th-ranked Jabeur. With the victory, Halep improved her 2022 win-loss record to a sterling 11-1.

More from Dubai quarterfinals: Ostapenko saves match point, denies Kvitova

Rivalry renewed: The most recent meeting between Halep and Jabeur also took place in Dubai, where Halep needed two-and-a-half hours to beat Jabeur in a third-set tiebreak in the 2020 second round. Halep went on to win her second Dubai title that year (her first came in 2015).

This time, Halep prevailed in straight sets, continuing her strong start to the season. The two-time Grand Slam champion is into her second semifinal of 2022, having already won a title at Melbourne Summer Set 1 in January. Her only loss so far this year came against Alizé Cornet in the Australian Open round of 16.

Simona says: "A very tough match, even if it's in two sets, it felt much harder than that," Halep said on court, after her win. "I had in my mind bigtime the match from 2020, it was so close and I knew I'd have to fight till the end.

"I've been focused on what I have to do, actually, and I wanted just to push [Jabeur] back because she has such a big game."

Match moments: A back-and-forth first set saw Halep twice up an early break before Jabeur made a late charge with her crafty play and sturdy returns. Jabeur broke Halep when the Romanian served for the set at 5-3, and the Tunisian would go on to hold a game point for 5-5.

However, Halep eventually prevailed in that game to eke out the first set. Although Halep also fell behind by an early break in the second set, she went on to notch six of the last seven games overall.

Halep got far more of her first serves into play than Jabeur, (63 percent to Jabeur's 53 percent) and won 65 percent of those points to pull her way to victory. Jabeur won just 53 percent of her first-service points, and was broken five times in the match.

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Familiar foe awaits: Halep's win lines up an exciting semifinal encounter where she will face World No.21 Jelena Ostapenko of Latvia. In their first meeting, Ostapenko stunned favorite Halep in the 2017 Roland Garros final to win her first Grand Slam title.

Halep exacted a measure of revenge by winning their second clash, which came later that season in the Beijing semifinals. This will be their first meeting since then.

Vondrousova steers past Yastremska in quarterfinal clash

Marketa Vondrousova of the Czech Republic completed the semifinal lineup in Dubai by defeating Dayana Yastremska of Ukraine 7-5, 6-4 in the nightcap quarterfinal.

World No.38 Vondrousova, last year's Olympic silver medalist in women's singles, took an hour and 41 minutes to oust 146th-ranked Yastremska, in a battle between qualifiers who have both previously reached the Top 25.

Highlights: Vondrousova def. Yastremska

Vondrousova becomes just the third qualifier to reach the Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships semifinals in the event's history. A qualifier has never reached the final of this tournament.

2019 Roland Garros runner-up Vondrousova was forced to mount a comeback in the opening set, as Yastremska led 5-3 and held a set point in that game. But the Czech was able to turn the opener around and win five games on the trot to steal the one-set lead.

The second set was also closely contested, as Vondrousova faced a break point while serving for the match at 5-4. But Yastremska fired a service return wide on that chance, and Vondrousova held onto that game to collect the win and improve to 2-1 against Yastremska.

Vondrousova will now take on Veronika Kudermetova of Russia in the semifinals, in their first meeting on tour.