By Chris Oddo | Friday June 15, 2018
Johanna Konta reached her first semifinal of the year at Nottingham, joining Donna Vekic, Ash Barty and Naomi Osaka in the Nature Valley Open semis.
Photo Source: Matthew Stockman/Getty
Johanna Konta continued her surge in form with a straight-sets win over Dalila Jakupovic on Friday at the Nature Valley Open in Notthingham. The British No.1 has reached her first semifinal of 2018 with a 6-4, 6-2 victory and books a rematch of last year’s final with Croatia’s Donna Vekic on Saturday.
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Defending champion Vekic also booked her first semifinal of 2018 by defeating Germany’s Mona Barthel, 7-5, 6-1.
Konta fell to Vekic in last year’s final despite the fact that she entered with a 3-0 lifetime record against her.
The other semifinal in Notthingham will be contested by Naomi Osaka and Ashleigh Barty.
Third-seeded Osaka powered into her first career grass-court semifinal with a 6-4, 6-1 win over Mihaela Buzarnescu. Barty defeated Great Britain’s Katie Boulter, 6-0, 6-2. The top-seeded Aussie has not dropped serve in three matches this week and she improved to 9-3 on grass since the beginning of last season with her only losses coming to Konta here last year, Petra Kvitova in the Birmingham final last year an Elina Svitolina in the first round of Wimbledon 2017.
"I think I'm serving well and....being nice and aggressive on return games to get myself into those games and give myself a chance every time," Barty said after the match. "I'm pretty happy with how everything's going."
Osaka and Barty have split their previous two meetings, with Osaka winning their most recent encounter.
"We had a great match at the Australian Open this year where she got the better of me," Barty said of Osaka. "She's a very big, powerful player with a great serve and a great first ball behind her serve. I think I'm going to have to use a lot of variety to try and extend those points and get into the points."