By Todd Muffie
CINCINNATI – The women’s second semifinal at the Western & Southern Open in Cincinnati was one-way traffic. The gap between the No. 2-ranked Simona Halep of Romania and Sloane Stephens of the United States proved too big for the American, who was never allowed to step foot into the match. Halep was solid and consistent throughout the entire match, while Stephens appeared slow and incapable of turning the local crowd in her favor.
The match started at 4:30 in the afternoon right after the men’s first semifinal between John Isner and Grigor Dimitrov electrified a jam-packed center court and kept the spectators at the edge of their seats.
After sitting in the heat and under an excruciating sun for almost two hours to support Big John, most of the spectators left center court to enjoy a well-deserved break. Despite the presence of another American player, the semifinal between Halep and Stephens started while most of the stands were still empty in a very uninspired atmosphere. The group of loud Romanian supporters was instead very vocal and vibrant, cheering for their national hero at every opportunity.
Stephens returned to the WTA Tour only a couple of months ago after undergoing foot surgery, and last week she enjoyed remarkable success at the Canadian Open reaching one of the biggest semifinals of her career. Despite another great run at this week’s Western and Southern Open, Stephens proved to be no competition for Halep, whose brilliant ability to turn defense into offense allowed her to close out the match with the dominant score of 6-2, 6-1 in only 54 minutes.
By reaching the Cincinnati final, Simona is once again one win away from becoming the No. 1 player in the WTA rankings. It is the third time in the past three months that the Romanian has the opportunity to sit on top of the world. She miserably failed in her previous two attempts, losing two big matches that on paper Simona played as the favorite. Halep lead 6-4, 3-0 in the French Open final against the young rising star Jelena Ostapenko, but then collapsed under the Latvian’s heavy groundstrokes in a shocking three-set defeat. A month later at Wimbledon, for the second time Simona was one win away from the No. 1 spot when she faced Johanna Konta in the quarterfinals: Halep was two points away from winning the match but once again the nerves had the best of the Romanian, allowing Konta to advance to the semifinals.
In the Cincinnati final, Halep will face the challenge from the new Wimbledon champion Garbine Muguruza, who upset the current world No. 1 Karolina Pliskova in Saturday’s first semifinal. When the new WTA rankings come out on Monday morning, Pliskova will have a total of 6390 points. If Halep wins the final in Cincinnati, she will be the new world No. 1 with 6700 points. If the Romanian instead loses the final, she will remain at No. 2 with 6385 points, which means that a bizarre five-point gap could separate the two best female players in the world.
Will it be “third time’s a charm” for Simona?
