Simona Halef (18th, Romania) advanced to the women’s singles semifinals at the Wimbledon Tennis Tournament (total prize money of £435,000, regarding 64.23 billion won).
Halef defeated Amanda Anisimova (25th, USA) 2-0 (6-2 6-4) in the women’s singles quarterfinals on the 10th day of the tournament held at the All England Club in Wimbledon, England on the 6th (local time).
Winner of the 2018 French Open and 2019 Wimbledon, Halef returned to the Wimbledon semifinals following three years.
Wimbledon might not be held in 2020 due to the novel coronavirus infection (COVID-19), and Halef missed last year’s competition due to an injury.
Halef has been on a downward trend since winning Wimbledon in 2019 and the Australian Open quarterfinals in 2020.
After the 2020 Australian Open quarterfinals, the best result in a major event was reaching the Australian Open quarterfinals once in last year.
The world ranking, which climbed to No. 1 in 2017, also fell to No. 27 in February of this year, but has recently recovered somewhat to No. 18.
Halef, who hired Serena Williams (USA) coach Patrick Moratoglu as a coach ahead of the French Open in May, was eliminated in the second round at the French Open, but reached the quarterfinals of Wimbledon and is seeing the effect of recruiting a new coach.
Halef’s opponent in the quarterfinals is Elena Rivakina (23rd, Kazakhstan).
Rivakina enjoyed the joy of advancing to the major semifinals for the first time in her career, beating Ayla Tomrianovic (44th, Australia) 2-1 (4-6 6-2 6-3).
Rivakina’s best performance in the major was last year’s French Open quarterfinals.
The record between Halef and Rivakina was 2 wins and 1 loss, and Halef won once more.
This year’s Wimbledon women’s singles semifinals were compressed into a match between Halef and Rivakina and Ons Jaber (2nd place, Tunisia) and Tatiana Maria (103rd place, Germany).
/yunhap news
