Indian Wells Semi-Final Sees Williams Face Halep

Serena Williams is the favourite to pick up the women`s division of the Indian Wells Masters on her competition reappearance but will have to overcome a potential banana skin in her semi-final opponent - Simona Halep. The two women will meet tomorrow at 17:00. Williams is a two-time Indian Wells title winner, taking the crown in 1999 and 2001 before her boycotting of the tournament. World number three Halep has already equalled her best ever tournament finish by making it this far, a defeat semi-finalist in last year`s renewal.

The American world number one can be backed at the best price of 3/5 (boylesports, Bwin) to scoop the 2015 Paribas Open, a title would be her 66th WTA achievement of her career. Halep is the 5/1 second favourite, looking to add an 11th trophy to her cabinet. This price is available at betfred, boylesports and Totesport.

These two women have met on-court five times, the Michigan-born star taking four of the matches that they have fought out. On hard court surfaces like the one they will be playing on tomorrow, their head-to-head record is much more competitive with the Romanian have won one tie to Williams` two.

All of these hard court encounters came in 2013 or later, Halep`s only victory against the first seed coming in the first round of the 2014 WTA Finals in Singapore. Thirty-three-year-old Williams, who is 10 years her opponent`s senior, failed to even win a game in the first set before losing the second set by six games to two. She would eventually get her revenge in the same competition, beating Halep in the final 6-3, 6-0.

Somewhat unusually, one of these two players has earned themselves a bagel victory against the other in all of their last four encounters. Punters are as yet unable to bet on whether or not there will be one of these scores in the match though can back a 6-0 victory to appear in the first set at 14/1 at william hill whilst it is 10/1 with the same bookmaker should you think that this will be the score in the second.

The two women`s only other face off on hard came in the quarter-final of the 2013 Cincinnati Masters, Williams the victor in that match. Here she managed to claim a bagel victory in the first set before securing the second 6-4. Only once has any match between the two players reached a third set, this being right back in 2011 in the second round of Wimbledon. As a result, betway have 19/10 on the tie being played out over three sets whilst 1/2 (betfair, Betvictor, william hill) is the best price on the match consisting of two.

In keeping with this, whilst Williams is 4/11 with nearly all bookmakers to claim her fifth victory against the 5`6" Constanta-born player, she can be backed at evens (william hill) to beat her in straight sets. Indeed, Halep is available at 13/5 with sportingbet to win by any means tomorrow but is a 11/2 (betfair, boylesports) shout to win by two sets to nil.

Williams has seen off all but one of her Paribas Open challengers in two sets, the only opponent able to take her to a third being her compatriot Sloane Stephens. Stephens took the first set of their fourth round match on a tie-break before losing the second and third sets by six games to two.

Tomorrow`s favourite is currently unbeaten in 2015, having claimed the Australian Open in her only other tournament appearance.

Halep will be no light weight, however, after winning two WTA titles of her own this year. The 23-year-old picked up the Shenzhen Open and the Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships before knocking out the seeded Varvara Lepchenko, Karolina Pliskova and Carla Suarez Navarro in this competition.

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19/03/2015     © Frixo 2026