Indian Wells: Simona Halep punches ticket to semis

California: Top-seed Simon Halep overcome windy conditions to sweep aside Petra Martic of Croatia in three-set thriller and book her place in the semi-finals of the Indian Wells Masters here on Thursday.

After comfortably winning the first set, the Romanian tennis star went down in the second before she bounced back strongly to seal a 6-4, 6-7(5), 6-3 win over Martic in a tightly-contested quarter-final clash of the women’s singles event which lasted two hours and 23 minutes.

Following the win, Halep was quoted by WTA as saying, “[The wind was] a bit too much.Everything I had today frustration way, it was because of the wind.”

With the win, the 26-year-old moved to her third Indian Wells semi-finals and improved her record to sparkling 18-1 this season.

Halep, who is looking to win her second WTA Tour title of 2018, will now face Japan’s Naomi Osaka for a place in the summit showdown. (ANI)