Halep to meet Muguruza in first Australian Open semi-final

Fourth seed Simona Halep on Wednesday sprinted past Estonia's Anett Kontaveit 6-1, 6-1 to reach her second Australian Open semi-final, where she will face fellow grand slam champion Garbine Muguruza after her 7-5, 6-3 win over Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova.

A resurgent Muguruza defeated 30th seed Pavlyuchenkova in one hour and 33 minutes to reach her first semi at Melbourne Park equalling her best result at a major since the 2018 Roland Garros, Deutsche press agency (dpa) reported.

In the opener, the two-time Grand Slam champion twice dropped her serve to then break right back. She then held steady on 5-5 to love, forcing Russia's Pavlyuchenkova to serve to stay in the set.

The 30th seed, who in 48 previous appearances in a major has never reached a semi-final, hit three double faults and then closed a 12-shot rally with an unforced error to gift the Spaniard the first set.

Muguruza again dropped her serve first early in the second, and again capitalized on Pavlyuchenkova gifting her two break points with a double fault to tie things up. The Russian's eighth serve mishap eventually gave the Spaniard the edge she needed to lock in her fifth slam semi.

Earlier at Rod Laver Arena, Kontaveit only managed to hold onto her serve in the first game of the opening set, with the two-time slam champion Halep then winning six in a row to take the set in less than half an hour.

Halep continued to roll in the second, winning a total of 11 consecutive games, with the Estonian getting her name on the board on 5-0 to avoid a co-called bagel.

The Romanian closed things off on her serve in 53 minutes, reaching the Melbourne major's semis without dropping a set.

"Perfection doesn't exist, but I'm very happy with the way I played, I felt good on court ... it was a great match," Halep said of her performance.