Top seed Simona Halep needed just 62 minutes to dispatch far-reaching qualifier Jennifer Brady and advance to her first final of the season at the Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships.
The 28-year-old Halep felt the ball well and played the best match of the week against the world No.52 Brady, who had beaten three consecutive Top 20 players to become only the second qualifier ever to reach the final four in Dubai. The 2015 tournament champion Halep enjoyed a straightforward 6-2 6-0 victory, hitting 16 winners to just eight unforced errors, while her American opponent’s unforced errors count was twice the total of her winners.
After the match, the Romanian former world No.1 explained how everything simply worked out for her today:
It’s fun when you feel the ball and when you can do anything you want. Today it was one of those days, I could open the court easy. I felt like every time I hit the ball, I feel it.
Halep’s opponent in the final will be world No.19 Elena Rybakina, as the in-form Kazakh got past eighth seed Petra Martic in the first semifinal on Friday.
