WTA Linz: Two country derbies in the semifinals
The final at the WTA Tour 250 tournament in Linz will be played by a Romanian and an American. That is already clear before the matches of the semifinals.
by Jens Huiber
last edit: Nov 11, 2021, 08:29 am
Simona Halep has only the best memories of tournament director Sandra Reichel. In 2013, the Romanian won her first tournament on the WTA tour in Nuremberg, Reichel provided good tennis entertainment at Valznerweiher for years until the circus left the Franconian metropolis and pitched in Hamburg. Since then, 21 other championships have been added for Halep, the most important in 2018 in Roland Garros and a little over a year later in Wimbledon.
No one has joined the team this season, so Simona Halep's last chance is in Linz. There she put a very offensive Jasmine Paolini in place on Wednesday evening, which was by no means a foregone conclusion in the middle of the second movement. But Halep, who broke up with her long-term coach Darren Cahill a few weeks ago, didn't want her series of years of tournament victories to be torn down, she still needs two match successes in Linz.
In Cluj-Napoca, Halep was close to the title a few days ago, but the now 30-year-old local hero also had to lay down her arms against Anett Kontaveit in her current form. In today's semifinals in Linz, Halep will face Jaqueline Cristian, a compatriot who made it into the main draw as a lucky loser. But on Wednesday with the quarter-final victory against Veronika Kudermetova made people sit up and take notice.
Riske and Collins are good friends
Before the Romanian break, two US-Americans, Danielle Collins and Alison Riske, are going to the Bütt in Linz from 6 p.m. The latter had noted after her quarter-final victory against Xinyu Wang how great the relationship with compatriot Collins was, with her there is never a boring moment. The opponents of the former college player would certainly confirm that, even if not with the same positive connotation as Riske: Danielle Collins is considered "feisty" on the court, which could be translated as "dogged", but in any case unpleasant.
Collins is third in Linz, she has already won two tournaments this year, in San Jose and Palermo. These are the only titles so far for Danielle Collins, playmate Riske also has two on her balance sheet: ´s-Hertogenbosch 2019 and Tianjin 2014. If you look at the latest results, then Danielle Collins is the favorite in the American duel: the past Week in Prague, Collins won all three singles in the final round of the Billie Jean King Cup. The fact that the US team is inferior to the later champions from Russia in the semifinals was not due to the current number 29 in the WTA charts.