Tennis Tennis Red-hot Bertens beats Svitolina, Halep marches on A recent purple patch for Kiki Bertens continued on Friday, as she defeated fifth seed Elina Svitolina at the Cincinnati Masters. Iain Strachan 18 August, 2018 07:40 IST Kiki Bertens playing in Cincinnati - Getty Images Iain Strachan 18 August, 2018 07:40 IST Simona Halep defeated both Ashleigh Barty and Lesia Tsurenko to reach the semi-finals of the Cincinnati Masters on Friday, but Elina Svitolina was unable to follow her example, as she lost to Kiki Bertens.After rain in Ohio on Thursday curtailed the schedule of the WTA Premier 5 event, world number one Halep, fifth seed Svitolina and the in-form Bertens were required to play two matches to make up for lost time.Halep successfully navigated her assignments to close in on another appearance in the final, but Ukrainian Svitolina came up short against Bertens.Also on Friday, Petra Kvitova won a marathon encounter with fellow seed Elise Mertens, and Aryna Sabalenka ousted Madison Keys. HALEP DOES THE DOUBLEWimbledon champion Halep, a beaten finalist in Cincinnati in 2015 and 2017, defeated Barty 7-5, 6-4 before finding herself in trouble early in her match against Tsurenko.The Romanian recovered from 1-4 down in the first set to win 6-4, 6-1 and breeze into the last four, where she will face Sabalenka. .@Simona_Halep seals her semifinal slot at @CincyTennis!Defeats Tsurenko, 6-4, 6-1! pic.twitter.com/HRezj4kVUp— WTA (@WTA) August 17, 2018 SVITOLINA SUFFERS, BERTENS BENEFITSSvitolina matched the efforts of Halep in winning her delayed encounter with Amanda Anisimova in straight sets.But the world number seven then found herself vulnerable up against Bertens, the Dutchwoman, ranked just 10 places below her opponent, taking advantage to win 6-4, 6-3.Bertens prevailed despite her own postponed encounter with Anett Kontaveit having earlier gone the distance. .@kikibertens is in the ZONE! #CincyTennis pic.twitter.com/hnshGRnzZ3— WTA (@WTA) August 17, 2018 KVITOVA MASTERS MERTENSBertens' opponent in the last-four will be Kvitova, the eighth seed having battled past Mertens (15) to win 7-5, 5-7, 6-3.The Czech, who defeated Serena Williams in the second round, had to recover from going a break down in the deciding set, before ultimately prevailing after a gruelling two hours and 44 minutes. 2 hours and 42 minutes later, we have a winner!@Petra_Kvitova pulls past Mertens 7-5, 5-7, 6-3 to reach the @CincyTennis semifinals. pic.twitter.com/R8Co3T1YeF— WTA (@WTA) August 17, 2018 tennis Subscribe to our daily newsletter Get your daily dose of Sportstar with handpicked stories delivered right to your inbox! SUBSCRIBE Please enter a valid email address.