Halep to face Wozniacki for title, Cilic through to final

Simona Halep of Romania defeated the 2016 champion Angelique Kerber, 6/3; 4/6; 9/7 and will face the second seed Caroline Wozniacki of Denmark, who defeated Elise Mertens of Belgium 6/3; 7/6(2) in the finals on Sunday.

In the men’s title chase, Marin Cilic of Croatia defeated Kyle Edmund of Great Britain 6/2; 7/6; 6/2

After Simona Halep won the first five games in the first, it seemed it would be a quick rout of the 2016 champion. However, Angelique Kerber started chasing down every ball.

Serving for the set, Simona hit two double faults and at 0-40 a defensive shot from Kerber skimmed the net and dropped over. That was the beginning of the drama on Rod Laver Arena.

In the seventh game, Kerber hit three straight forehand winners and ran down a drop shot before hitting an overhead for the game. She then took Kerber’s serve at love before dropping her own to lose the set 6-3.

After returning from a bathroom break to resume play, Kerber lost the frist game of the second set but held to level. Now in a dominant position, Halep broke Kerber’ serve to lead 3-1 but handed the fifth to her opponent who promptly served to level 3 games apiece.

Halep won the seventh game and had two break points on Kerber’s serve but the German star chased down a drop shot to level and twice prevented Halep from winning her serve before breaking to lead 5-4. She served out the set, 6-4.

After trading breaks, the two ladies held to their service games until Halep broke Kerber’s serve to lead 5-3. Kerber denied Halep the ninth game in which she won a 26-shot rally when her opponent netted the ball.