Simona defeats Sabine into last four

Thursday, 3 July 2014 01:59 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}

Simona Halep of Romania reacts after defeating Sabine Lisicki of Germany in their women’s singles quarter-final tennis match at the Wimbledon Tennis Championships, in London 2 July – Reuters

LONDON (Reuters): Simona Halep continued her impressive season by marching into the Wimbledon semi-finals with a businesslike 6-4 6-0 victory over last year’s runner-up Sabine Lisicki on Wednesday. Romanian Halep, beaten finalist at last month’s French Open, has climbed to third in the rankings this year by virtue of career-best results at consecutive grand slams and was in no mood to ease up against the 19th-seeded German. Lisicki had shrugged off a shoulder injury in her fourth-round victory over Yaroslava Shvedova on Tuesday with no apparent ill-effects and went on the attack with some big serves and ferocious groundstrokes to race into a 4-1 lead. But Halep showed her mettle to pull back to 4-4. Lisicki seemed to sense she had missed a golden opportunity, allowing the Romanian to give her the runaround from the baseline and reel off the next eight games to seal a place in the last four.