Simona Halep to Birmingham semifinals over native player Boulter

The fairytale run of Katie Boulter in Birmingham was stopped by a fiery performance from Simona Halep who won 6-4 6-1.

The Romanian player is finding a very strong level on grass after a rather disappointing season on clay. Halep is through to the semifinals of the Birmingham Classic where she hopes to go all the way. It would certainly provide her with tons of confidence heading into Wimbledon three years after she won the event. Katie Boulter had a strong week of her own but today she was outplayed.

It was a close opening set that featured better early play from Boulter. Halep had to save some early break points and after doing that she found a very good rhythm that never left her. She broke Boulter at the perfect time at 4-4 to take a 5-4 lead and closed out the set with 6-4.

It was a superb result considering she only hit her first serve 33 % of the time and on grass that is very tough to overcome. Whatever Boulter tired on the 2nd serve did not really work as Halep was ready for all of it. Simona broke Boulter early in the 2nd set as well taking a 1-0 lead. Halep dropped her serve to make it 1-1 but after that went on a 5-game run to close out the match in two sets 6-4 6-1.