Tennis: Barty powers into WTA Cincinnati final by beating Kerber
World number one Ashleigh Barty of Australia defeated Angelique Kerber of Germany on Saturday to reach the final of the WTA Cincinnati Masters
CINCINNATI: World number one Ashleigh Barty reached her sixth final of the season on Saturday (Aug 21) as the Australian defeated Angelique Kerber 6-2, 7-5 at the ATP and WTA Cincinnati Masters.
The top-seeded Aussie, who has led the ranking table for the past 82 weeks, needed an hour and a quarter to move into Sunday's title match, surpassing her semi-final showing from 2019.
Barty will play for the trophy on Sunday against the winner of a later match between Swiss wild card Jil Teichmann - who beat good friend and Olympic gold medalist Belinda Bencic in the quarter-finals - and Czech fifth seed Karolina Pliskova, more than a year and a half without a title.
Against Kerber, Barty increased her lead in the series between multiple Grand Slam winners to 4-2 as she duplicated a Wimbledon semi-final victory from last month.
Barty produced a dozen aces as she broke Kerber five times. Her 39 match wins this year nudge her one ahead of Aryna Sabalenka on the WTA list.
