PARIS: Simona Halep vowed to erase the misery of her 2017 Roland Garros heartbreak after reaching her third French Open final on Thursday where she will face US Open winner Sloane Stephens for the title.

Halep, the runner-up in 2014 and 2017, enjoyed a 6-1, 6-4 victory over 2016 champion and third seed Garbine Muguruza of Spain.

Stephens, who won her maiden Slam title in New York last year, defeated fellow American and close friend Madison Keys 6-4, 6-4 having previously never got beyond the quarter-finals in Paris.

“I am really happy that I won the match, it was very important for my mind and I gave it all I had,” said Romanian star Halep.

After racing through the first set, Halep saved three break points in a marathon ninth game of the second which lasted 13 minutes.

Halep will be appearing in her fourth final at the majors having also been beaten in Australia in January.

Halep has now defeated Muguruza in both their meetings on clay and will also retain the world number one ranking next week.

However, her sights now turn to the final where she is desperate to erase the memories of last year’s horror show where she surrendered a set and a 3-0 lead to lose to Jelena Ostapenko.

She boasts a 5-2 career lead over Stephens including both their meetings on clay.

The American’s last win over the 26-year-old Halep was five years ago.

Halep raced into a 5-0 lead in the first set against misfiring 2016 champion Muguruza who had blasted Maria Sharapova off court on Wednesday for the loss of just three games. The 24-year-old Spaniard stopped the rot in the sixth game before Halep quickly reasserted her authority.

Stephens defeated Keys in straight sets when she won the US Open last September.

On Thursday, it was more of the same as the 25-year-old capitalised on her friend’s big match nerves.

“It’s really hard to play against a great friend, but I am pleased to be in the final for the first time,” said Stephens who will rise to four in the world thanks to her deepest run in the French capital. “This is one of my favourite tournaments. It’s another great opportunity and I am looking forward to it.”

In the first all-American women’s semi-final in Paris since 2002, the 10th seeded Stephens broke in the third game of the opening set.

That was sufficient in a set where 13th seeded Keys committed 23 unforced errors.

Stephens, who had been just two points from being knocked out by Camila Giorgi in the third round, was quickly 2-0 ahead in the second.

She went to 5-2 on a double break and although Keys rallied, the statistics made brutal reading.

She finished with 41 unforced errors with Stephens only needing to fire nine winners to get her home.

Meanwhile, Argentina’s Juan Martin Del Potro felled Marin Cilic in a clash of the titans, winning 7-6 (7-5), 5-7, 6-3, 7-5 on Thursday, and will now aim his heavy artillery at Rafael Nadal in the semi-finals.

Nadal lost his first set at the French Open since 2015 but that blip did not prevent the 10-time champion from marching into the semi-finals with a 4-6, 6-3, 6-2, 6-2 victory over Diego Schwartzman in their rain-delayed match.

The world number one had looked out of sorts in damp conditions on Wednesday as Schwartzman bombarded him with winners to cause him all sorts of problems, with the Argentine leading by a set and a break when the players were first called off court due to rain.

Upon resumption, the Spaniard gradually improved before rain brought an early end to the day with Nadal on the brink of winning the second set.

It was a very different story when the contest resumed on Thursday in drier conditions as Nadal won 12 of the first 13 points before cruising into the last four.

Del Potro has looked one of the biggest threats to Nadal’s domination this year, with his pulverising forehand dismantling everyone in his path on the Parisian clay.

After dropping the opening set of his first round match he won the next 12. But Cilic, who like Del Potro stands 1.98m tall, owns a US Open title, has a beast of a serve and always looked like being his first serious test. And so it proved.

After returning to a sunny Court Suzanne Lenglen locked at 5-5 in the first set tiebreak after battle was halted because of rain on Wednesday, Del Potro flirted with danger before racking up an eighth win in succession against Cilic.

Published in Dawn, June 8th, 2018