Kvitova vs Bouchard for Wimbledon crown
LONDON—Eugenie Bouchard defeated French Open runner-up Simona Halep, 7-6 (5), 6-2, Thursday to advance to the Wimbledon final against 2011 champion Petra Kvitova.
Bouchard, who has not dropped a set in six matches, won on her sixth match point to reach her first Grand Slam final. She lost in the semifinals at this year’s two previous majors, the Australian Open and French Open.
In a semifinal that was delayed twice in the first set—first by a left ankle injury to Halep, and then when a woman spectator fell ill during the tiebreaker—Halep double-faulted on break point in the second set and then was broken again by Bouchard to give the Canadian a 4-1 lead.
Earlier, Kvitova beat fellow Czech Lucie Safarova, 7-6 (6), 6-1.
In the men’s singles semifinals Friday, top-seeded Novak Djokovic will take on Bulgaria’s Grigor Dimitrov, who ousted last year’s champion Andy Murray of Britain in the quarterfinals.
It will be followed by the clash between seven-time champion Roger Federer and eighth seed Milos Raonic, the first Canadian in more than a century to reach the semifinals here.
No. 3 seed Halep, who saved three match points in the seventh game and two more in more in the final game, appeared to be increasingly affected by her ankle injury and looked down at her feet several times.
The tiebreaker was delayed briefly when the female spectator became ill. With Halep leading 3-2 in the tiebreaker, umpire Kader Nouni jumped from his chair to alert security officials to the woman’s illness and told both players to go to their chairs.
The first Canadian woman to reach Wimbledon’s semifinals, 20-year-old Bouchard is the youngest player ranked in the top 20.
She is only the sixth woman since 2000 to get to at least the semifinals at a season’s first three majors, joining Serena Williams, Jennifer Capriati, Justine Henin, Kim Clijsters and Dinara Safina. AP
