Seeded Simona Halep Coasts to Australian Open Semifinals

The top seed is guaranteed to meet a Czech opponent for a place in the semi-finals, either sixth seed Karolina Pliskova or Barbora Strycova, the 20th seed, who play later. But that three-set victory will, more than likely, make her even looser from here on out.

There was a time when this was her territory.

“You know, it’s great to being back in the quarters again”, the 30-year-old told reporters.

“She obviously is awesome at getting lots of balls back and makes you feel like you have to go for bigger shots than you would against other players, because, you know, she’s going to get two, three more balls”. I started slow but then I got used to the rhythm.

“I’m looking forward to playing him”. She was hitting winners.

“I definitely had a real pinch-me moment”.

But she could not find a way to do justice to her abilities on Wednesday, making almost twice as many unforced errors as winners and often rushing when patience would have been advisable.

Halep took her momentum into the second set and broke Pliskova once more to race to a 3-1 lead.

“For sure is going to be a second marathon this tournament”, Halep said of her upcoming match against Kerber.

Elina Svitolina will kick off the quarter-final action on this afternoon when she faces Belgium’s Elise Mertens on Rod Laver Arena.

She faces Elise Mertens who a year ago had to miss the Australian Open thanks to a now removed rule that stopped you from playing a tournament and Grand Slam qualification in the same week. But she’s a little older and perhaps still a little better with the shot selection under duress. She says the most important thing about this year is her attitude, which isn’t as critical as it was last year.

For Keys so much depends on the serve, which let her down badly on this occasion as Kerber won 57 percent of points on the American’s first serve. “So for me, it’s having to play aggressive.”. We were just going through the rallies. “I served well too so everything went pretty well for me”, Halep said after the match.

“I’m evolving guys”, she said, smiling. She’s strong on the backhand side. She said the Romanian likes her pace, uses it to her advantage. “She just use my (pace)”. The best part about Keys so far is she hasn’t looked the least bit tense on court.

What a year it has been. she started the season in Hopman Cup and along with Angelique Kerber, provided one of the matches of the tournament in Perth.

“I think in the first set I played really passive”, Keys told reporters afterward.

“Every match is different story – I don’t think [Halep is] going to win it”, said Pliskova. “I have to change something”. “I think how I played all of the other matches definitely shows that, and I’m not going to walk away from this tournament and think it was awful because I had one bad match”. I have to be ready, be calm and try to dominate the match and finish the points.

The head-to-head between Kerber and Halep was heavily weighted towards Halep early on. He seems in good shape, and I’m happy he’s over his back issues that he also had at the end of previous year.

They haven’t played each other since.