DUBAI: Belinda Bencic shocked former world number one Simona Halep 4-6, 6-4, 6-2 to reach the semi-finals of the Dubai Championships on Thursday, her second successive giant-killing act in the Gulf state.

Bencic, ranked 56, followed up her third-round knockout of number eight Aryna Sabalenka, where she saved six match points, with her two-and-a-quarter hour win over 2015 champion Halep.

Former world number seven Bencic broke Halep’s serve seven times during Thursday’s contest before claiming victory on her third match point as her Romanian opponent ran out of steam.

The 21-year-old will face defending champion Elina Svitolina in the other semi-final after the Ukrainian eased past Spain’s Carla Suarez Navarro 6-2, 6-3 in the day’s last match.

It’s the fourth year in a row that Svitolina makes the semi-finals in Dubai, although she had to come from a break down in each set to get past Suarez Navarro.

Meanwhile, Taiwan’s Hsieh Su-wei pulled off another stunning upset when she staged a remarkable late rally to beat fourth seed Karolina Pliskova 6-4, 1-6, 7-5.

The unseeded Hsieh, who knocked Wimbledon champion Angelique Kerber out of the last 16 on Wednesday, was on the ropes at 5-1 down in the deciding set against the big-serving Pliskova, but won the last six games to deny the Czech victory.

Hsieh will battle Pliskova’s compatriot, two-times Wimbledon champion Petra Kvitova, for a place in Saturday’s final after the second-seeded Czech despatched Slovakian Viktoria Kuzmova 6-4, 6-0 in a one-side quarter-final lasting 62 minutes.

Kvitova, who was champion in Dubai in 2013 and runner-up at this year’s Australian Open, sent down 21 winners and won 74 percent of her first serve points while making 12 unforced errors as she dominated from start to finish.

Published in Dawn, February 23rd, 2019