By Chris Oddo | Friday, June 19, 2015

 

Kristina Mladenovic created the upset of the day in Birmingham by taking out Simona Halep in a third-set tiebreaker.

Photo Source: Christopher Levy

France’s Kristina Mladenovic has had success against the WTA’s Top 10, but never outside of France. All four of her previous wins against the WTA’s elite had come in Paris, but that all changed today, and with it the grass-court fortunes of one of the tour’s most promising young players.

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Mladenovic defeated top-seeded Simona Halep in an entertaining battle, 2-6, 6-0, 7-6(4), to reach her first career grass-court semifinal.

The Frenchwoman improved her record on grass to 6-1 in 2015. She was 2-6 on the surface prior to this season, but said she has always loved the surface after the match. “As I said a long time ago, it's my favorite surface,” Mladenovic said. “I just think I was a bit unlucky last year.”

This year Mladenovic is proving to be luckier, but more important, she’s playing excellent tennis. On Friday she bounced back from a tough opening set to take the play to Halep. Mixing in a steady diet of drop shots with her exceptional serving and power, she handed the Romanian a bagel in set two and took a 5-3 lead in the decider before nerves got to her when she served for the match.

She was broken and quickly found herself in a struggle heading down the stretch.

“5 3, to be honest, a lot of emotion, pressure,” she said. “I mean, I have Simona in front of me. She wouldn't give it away as easy again. She played really solid and didn't give any unforced errors. I had some wrong choices, and of course maybe too much thinking about closing out match. I mean, what can I say? It's normal.”

Faced with pressure, and a hungry Halep, Mladenovic was able to get into the tiebreaker and reel off the last four points of the match with decisive hitting. The triumph marks her fifth career victory against the Top 10, and second against the Top 5.

She’ll move on to face Karolina Pliskova in Saturday’s semifinals. The Czech grooved past Carla Suarez Navarro in straight sets, 6-2, 6-2, earlier on Friday.

"I was feeling really great today, I've already won two matches so I'm feeling really confident on grass," Pliskova said. "This was my best match here and I'm just really happy that my game is improving."