By Chris Oddo | Wednesday September 2, 2015

 

Simona Halep raced past Victoria Azarenka after an 85-minute rain delay to reach her first US Open semifinal.

Photo Source: Alex Goodlett/Getty

Whatever it was that Simona Halep did during the one hour and 25-minute rain delay that interrupted the third set of her US Open quarterfinal with Victoria Azarenka, she should do it before every match.

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Halep hammered an ace on her first serve as play resumed and didn’t drop her level the rest of the way, ending up with a confidence-inspiring, 6-3, 4-6, 6-4 victory over Azarenka to reach her first career US Open semifinal.

“I don’t know where I found the power to win this match after the break,” Halep wondered during her on-court interview with Pam Shriver. “The break helped me, thank God for raining.”

Halep was dazzling for much of the match, but she was near-perfect in the final set which saw her clock 16 winners against 5 unforced errors and routinely hit her spot with some of her most lethal serves. Forced to defend for much of the middle set, Halep made it a point to serve big and push the play to Azarenka. It worked.

“I just wanted to be aggressive, to take the ball fast, to hit the ball and to open the court,” she said.


But the ranking and seed don’t tell the whole story about Azarenka. All year she has steadily improved, and had she not encountered difficult draws in the last three majors she may be ranked much higher already. The Belarussian lost to eventual champion Serena Williams in the third round at Roland Garros, then fell again to Williams in the quarterfinals at Wimbledon, taking the World No. 1 to three sets on each occasion.

Today against Halep, Azarenka brought trademark intensity and a high-octane game, but a sloppy third set led to her undoing in the end. Azarenka hit 18 unforced errors in the final stanza (coupled with 20 winners), and though she was toe-to-toe with Halep for many spirited rallies down the stretch, she wasn’t as precise with her attack as the Romanian, particularly as the rallies went longer.

After Azarenka held serve to pull within a game at 4-5, Halep set up her first match point with an inside-out forehand winner in the next game. It was the only match point the World No. 2 would need. After gaining the advantage in the point, Azarenka missed a makeable forehand to end the match, sending Halep into fits of joy as she celebrated yet another milestone victory.

Halep improved to 15-6 in three-setters with the victory, and nudged her tour-leading win total on hard courts to 37 (vs. 5 losses).

Azarenka dropped to 5-6 in three-setters and 5-7 vs. the Top 10 with the loss. Six of her seven Top-10 losses have come against Top-3 talent (three vs. Serena Williams, two vs. Maria Sharapova, one vs. Halep).

Halep will next face Italian Flavia Pennetta in the semifinals. The Italian owns a 3-1 record vs. Halep, but the Romanian won the pair’s most recent meeting in straights sets this spring in Miami.