Transylvania Open: Simona Halep and Anett Kontaveit to reignite rivalry in final

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Top seeds Simona Halep and Anett Kontaveit will play each other for a chance for the Transylvania Open title in Cluj-Napoca on Sunday. On Saturday, both players came through their respective semi-finals with dominating straight-set victories.

In the first semi-final, Kontaveit, the second seed in the draw, ousted Rebecca Peterson 6-3, 6-2 in just 63 minutes to reach her sixth final of the season. Kontaveit hit almost six times as many winners as the Swede in the match – 23 to the latter’s four.

Reaching the final also kept Kontaveit in sight of making it to the WTA Finals for the first time in her career. The world no. 14 needs to win the title in Romania this week which would help her overtake Ons Jabeur in the race.

As of now, Jabeur’s ranked eighth in the race.

Transylvania Open: Anett Kontaveit's momentum continues surging

Talking about her performance, on-court, after her win, Kontaveit said, “I've been feeling really good on the court, and today wasn't as easy as the scoreboard seemed.

I really had to fight for it. Everything's been pretty automatic (for me) this week. I've been trying to get through each match as well as I can. I think I've been playing well, I've been playing aggressive, and my shots have a lot on them.

Before the quarterfinals, in the second round, I was feeling my body a little bit, but it's actually been getting a little bit better. I really have the motivation and I'm trying to do my best out here”. Meanwhile, Halep routed Marta Kostyuk 6-0, 6-1 to reach the finals in her native nation.

The former world no. 1 needed just 62 minutes to clinch the win. Halep had one fewer winner than the Ukrainian – 10 to the latter’s 11 but less than one-third of the latter’s unforced error count – 12 to Kostyuk’s 38.

The Transylvania Open final between Simona Halep and Anett Kontaveit will be their fourth career meeting. Halep’s won all three of them, the most recent of which came about in the quarterfinals of the 2020 Australian Open. Photo Credit: Transylvania Open Twitter