Karolina Pliskova produced an excellent performance to beat Simona Halep 6-0 2-6 6-4 and set up a mouth-watering semi-final clash with Ashleigh Barty at the 2019 WTA Finals in Shenzhen.
The Czech, 27, was defeated in the last four at the season-ending event in 2017 and 2018, so she will be hoping to go further this year. It will be a tall order to beat the World No.1 but she can do it.
After all, Pliskova passed a tough test in her winner-takes-all encounter with the Romanian. She had lost seven of their 11 previous meetings. But today she came out with purpose and started the match in stunning style. She hit 11 winners and completely dominated all six games of the first set as she wrapped it up 6-0 in just 21 minutes.
Understandably, Halep felt like she needed some guidance after that. She called on her coach Darren Cahill and he instructed her to operate further behind the baseline and make the Czech work harder to win points.
That approach worked brilliantly in the second set. The two-time Grand Slam champion broke Pliskova immediately and quickly opened up a 2-0 lead.
Surprisingly, the Czech won two games in a row to seemingly re-assert control on proceedings. However, Halep was not fazed. She raised her game again and won the next four games by manoeuvring the World No.2 all over the court with some superb tennis to level the match at one-set-all.
Pliskova edges rollercoaster decider
The quality dropped in the final set. Halep won the first two games but then lost her cool after missing her chance to win the third game. She then gifted Pliskova a break to love and lost a tight fifth game.
Darren Cahill came on talk to the Romanian again, and what he said astonished the commentators and probably a lot of viewers too. He told Halep her behaviour in the last three games was a ‘disgrace’ and instructed to sort out her attitude for the rest of the set.
Unsurprisingly, the World No.5 seemed a bit shell-shocked by her coach’s outburst. She quickly lost the two games to leave herself in all sorts of trouble.
Halep recovered to bring the score back to 5-4. But Pliskova hammered a couple of huge winners to break the Romanian for the seventh time in the match and claim victory.
“We have so many good matches,” the Czech said in her on-court interview. “Every time it’s kind of close. She has a better record against me, but I was kind of positive (going into it). I think I played some good matches here and some good tennis.”
She continued, “Today was a little bit tricky and I’m happy that I found my way through. I never stopped fighting and believing.”
Svitolina maintains her perfect record in Shenzhen
There was far less at stake in the other match in Shenzhen today. Elina Svitolina had already booked her semi-final place after two straight-sets wins, while Sofia Kenin had no chance to qualify for the last four because she only had the opportunity to play one match after she replaced the injured Bianca Andreescu.
Despite this, both players seemed determined to win. They put on a great show for an appreciative crowd during a closely-fought two-set encounter that lasted over two hours. The Ukrainian eventually won 7-5 7-6(10).
