Simona Halep put on a near-flawless performance against Karolina Pliskova in the quarterfinals of the Australian Open on Wednesday, winning in straight sets, 6-3 6-2.
Here are five takeaways from the Romanian’s 71-minute victory over the big-serving Czech:
1. She reached the semifinals of the Australian Open for the first time in her career. Halep’s best previous results at the Australian Open were two quarterfinals in 2014 (losing to Dominika Cibulkova) and 2015 (losing to Ekaterina Makarova). But with this win over Pliskova, she’s through to the semifinals for the first time. It was the only Grand Slam tournament in which Halep had not reached the final four.
2. She’s now won six of seven career meetings against Pliskova. Pliskova beat Halep once at a Fed Cup rubber in 2016—held in Romania, incidentally. But all six of their meetings that have come at WTA or Grand Slam tournaments have gone Halep’s way, five of those six wins in straight sets.
3. She broke one of the best servers in the game in five of her nine service games. Pliskova managed just four holds in nine service games in the match, partially due to some incredibly solid statistics from Halep—the world No. 1 hit twice as many winners to unforced errors in the match (20 to 10), held seven of her own eight service games and, at one point, won nine games in a row.
Tennis Channel's Paul Annacone sat down with Simona Halep's coach, Darren Cahill, for another edition of Coaching in the Bigs:
