STUTTGART: CoCo Vandeweghe knocked world number one Simona Halep out of the Stuttgart Grand Prix here on Friday with a commanding 6-4, 6-1 win but admitted she wasn’t even aware of the score for large parts of the match.

The Californian’s 74-minute demolition of the Romanian top seed follows Maria Sharapova’s loss in the first round and the injury retirements of second seed Garbine Muguruza and German crowd favourite Angelique Kerber on Thursday in the second round.

She will now face French sixth seed Carolina Garcia, who constructed a third straight fightback over third-seeded Elina Svitolina 6-7 (4-7), 6-4, 6-2.

“At one point in the first set, I wasn’t even sure of the score,” Vandeweghe said. “Maybe that’s the secret.”

The second semi-final will be contested between Estonia’s Anett Kontaveit and fifth-seeded Karolina Pliskova of the Czech Republic.

Kontaveit needed almost three hours to beat Russia’s Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova 7-5, 6-7 (6-8), 6-4 while Pliskova came from break points down in the final game to beat Roland Garros champion Jelena Ostapenko, 5-7, 7-5, 6-4.

Published in Dawn, April 29th, 2018