TWO huge battles were the talk of the town at the WTA Tour’s Internazionali BNL d’Italia, fittingly seeing the top two seeds in Simona Halep and Karolina Pliskova proceed into the final. With two seeded battles going ahead, neither player got away with easy wins although Pliskova certainly came away with the quicker victory.

Halep certainly had the tougher of the two finals, taking two hours and 17 minutes to dispose of ninth seed Spaniard Garbine Muguruza who powered through a slow start to collect the second set, winning the last four games to take it to one apiece. But while Muguruza was well and truly in the match, Halep had form going for her with 12 straight wins prior to this match-up, and remaining undefeated in three-setters in 2020 with the 6-3 4-6 6-4 victory. 

It was Halep’s ability to force errors from Muguruza that saw the Romanian remain ahead on this occasion, with eight double faults from the Spaniard contributing to a huge 37 unforced errors to Halep’s 22. While Muguruza hit 14 more winners (35-21), Halep was far more composed and applied a mountain-load of pressure on her opponent’s serve to come away with victory.

“She’s a very, very difficult player and a good player,” Halep said post-match. “It’s always a good feeling when I win against her.

“I feel confident now that I was able to win this match. I know I had so many chances to maybe finish it a little bit faster and easier, but as we saw, she doesn’t give up.

“I’m happy that I was a little bit stronger and I was more aggressive when I needed to be.”

An all-Czech battle played out between Pliskova and 12th seed Marketa Vondrousova in the second match of the day, with Pliskova utilising her strong serve for the 6-2 6-4 victory and set to chase her 2019 title defence. While tested in the second set by Vondrousova who broke back after a 2-4 start to the set to draw even, Pliskova remained composed and disciplined in her efforts with 73 per cent efficiency on her first serve and six aces to one. 

As for the ensuing battle against Halep, Pliskova has won four of their 11 matches and said that she is looking forward to taking on the Romanian top seed and has plenty of confidence in her ability to push for victory.

“I can’t say I was in the mental state I am now back then, because at the time, playing Simona on clay would have felt like no chance,” Pliskova said in her post-match press conference. “Now, I would go for it more and believe I could beat her. We’ve had a lot of good matches… I feel like it’s still her surface, not mine, but I’ve beaten her on clay before.

“It’s going to be super tough because she’s fighting hard, won the tournament in Prague and is into the final here. It’s never going to be easy against her, no matter the tournament, but it’s going to be a great final.”