Caroline Wozniacki reached the final of the China Open with ease after the Dane defeated Qiang Wang 6-1,6-3 and keep alive her hopes of winning a second crown in Beijing.
The second seed Wozniacki is clearly on a high at this tournament, and the trend did not stop in the semi-finals as she read Wang beautifully and punished poorly-conceived shots from her opponent.
It was 3-0 Wozniacki in 12 minutes, and Wang’s fortunate service hold in the fourth game would be the only time she held serve in the opening set.
Wang was not playing badly, but despite her ball-striking talent, she simply could not reach the percentage shots that Wozniacki played through the centre of the net which then bounced out wide.
Having allowed Wozniacki to dominate the first set in 37 minutes, Wang offered some sterner resistance in the second. She finally held serve again to make it 1-2 and broke back in the very next game.
Wang held serve to bring things to 3-2 in her advantage, but she seemingly ran out of steam from there as Wozniacki, sensing danger, upped the intensity to keep things a straight-sets affair.
After two straightforward wins for Wozniacki in this match and the quarter-final against Katerina Siniakova, she may be tested in Sunday’s final, when she plays Latvia’s Anastasija Sevastova.
Earlier, the unseeded Sevastova defeated reigning US Open champion Naomi Osaka, who had been attempting to become the first player in 2018 to reach three consecutive finals, 6-4, 6-4 in a major upset.
Sevastova clearly had no fears battling Osaka, having already beaten the rising Japanese star 6-4, 6-1 in the second round in Doha, and her confidence played a key part in her second victory.
Nonetheless, things were particularly tight in the first set, and though Osaka saved three break points in the third game, she failed dropped 3-4 behind before going on to then lose the set.
Once broken in the second set to go 3-2 behind, medical attention to her lower back which had apparently troubled for much of the tie, provided only a temporary respite for Osaka to rally to 4-4.
But Osaka tallied 42 errors by the match’s end as Sevastova again captured the break and took the win on her first match point with an ace.
