Simona Halep to Face Elina Svitolina at Wimbledon Championships 2019 Semifinals

Simona Halep became the first player to qualify for the semifinals of the Wimbledon Championships 2019 after surviving an early scare and defeated the Chinese, Zhang Shuai 7-6, 6-1 in one hour and 27 minutes in the quarterfinals.

The no. 7 seed, Simona Halep as she was broken in her first service game of the match as she was trailing by 2-0 in the first set. Zhang Shuai then held her serve and made Simona Halep work hard to win her first game to 3-1.

Struggling Simona Halep then saved four break points to hold her service game to take the score to 4-2. However, the Romanian was back on serve after breaking Zhang Shuai to 4-3.

Both the players then rallied through to take the set to the tiebreaker as they held their respective service games till 6-6. There was nothing to differentiate between the two. However, Halep took control of the tiebreaker and won the set 7-6.

After being 4-1 down in the set, the Romanian battled back and found her way to win it with a ferocious crosscourt forehand, which was too hard for the Chinese to handle.

In the second set, both the players started off well after holding their serves at 1-1. However, it looked like Simona Halep has rattled Zhang Shuai as she won 5 consecutive games, breaking Zhang twice to conquer the second set quite comfortably 6-1.

The victory meant that the Romanian levels her head to head with Zhang to 2-2. The last time that they fought against each other, Zhang won 6-0, 6-3 in the 3 round in Beijing back in 2016.

The 2018 French Open champion will face Elina Svitolina in the semifinals, who defeated Karolina Muchova in straight sets in the last 16.

This will be Halep’s best result at the Wimbledon Championships after 2014 when the Romanian reached the last four at the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club.