Garbiñe Muguruza will play her third final of the 2021 season in the Dubai tournament after defeating Belgian Elise Mertens 6-4, 7-6 (5).

Czech Barbora Krejcikova will be her rival for the title, after she beat (7-5, 6-2) Switzerland's Jil Belen Teichmann in the other semi-final.

It will be Garbiñe's first confrontation with Krejcikova, current world number 63.

Muguruza had to fight a lot against her rival, a player with a different style and not as aggressive as that of the double winner of the 'Grand Slam', who despite everything was almost always ahead on the scoreboard, although it was complicated by moments the two sleeves.

The former world number one, who added her 17th victory of the year, the one with the most in this beginning of the campaign, finished the game with 36 winning strokes, partly clouded by the large number of unforced errors (40), with eight doubles. fouls, and many of them caused by the resistance of the Belgian, who when she seemed to have lost the game, was about to take it to the third and final set.

Despite losing his first serve, Muguruza knew how to react with two consecutive 'breaks' to get a comfortable 4-1 in a semifinal start marked by the fragility of the serves.

The Spanish-Venezuelan was placed 5-3 and service, but gave it up to a Mertens who also saved a set ball.

However, the ninth seed in Dubai again pressed from the rest and broke the serve of his rival for the third time to win the first set.

The memory of Osaka in Melbourne

In the second, there was more equality from the beginning, although the best opportunities were for the 16th in the world, who did not take advantage of a valuable 15-40 in the second game.

Mertens was improving and enduring on the track, but a great eighth game from Caracas seemed to give him almost the ticket to the final.

But the Belgian had already shown her ability to survive in the quarterfinals and she did it again, thanks to her patience and the anxiety of Muguruza, who entered a negative streak that made her see herself down 6-5 and serve by Mertens, and with four balls. of wasted matches.

The memory of the Australian Open and her duel with

Naomi Osaka

could plan through her head, but the Spanish-Venezuelan recovered her coldness to force the 'sudden death' and finish sentencing the Belgian there in her seventh 'match ball' to qualify for her third final of the year, following last week's losses in Doha to Czech

Petra Kvitova

and Australian

Ashleigh Barty

in Melbourne in January.

According to the criteria of The Trust Project

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