Britain\u2019s Johanna Konta won through to her first semi-final since Wimbledon last year with a 6-4, 6-2 victory over Dalila Jakupovic in the WTA tour event in Nottingham — a warm-up for the lone grass-court Grand Slam.<\/p>\n
Konta next faces Donna Vekic of Croatia, who beat her in the Nottingham final 12 months ago.<\/p>\n
Friday\u2019s match was the first meeting between Konta and Jakupovic. It was the Slovenian who made the initial move by breaking serve to lead 2-1.<\/p>\n
But the methodical Konta kept her composure and, against an increasingly erratic opponent, won four games in a row to take the first set.<\/p>\n
Jakupovic had an early break in the second as well but Konta soon levelled before surging to victory.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was very tricky out here, quite windy, and I\u2019d never played her before,\u201d Konta told Eurosport.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe most important thing is that I\u2019m competing well and fighting for every single point. I\u2019m definitely enjoying getting more matches under my belt and we\u2019ll work towards getting another one.\u201d<\/p>\n
After their Nottingham encounter, Konta beat Vekic at Wimbledon — but only after winning the deciding set 10-8.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve had some incredible battles, especially the last two times,\u201d said Konta. \u201cShe\u2019s playing very well on this surface.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m looking forward to the challenge, it\u2019ll be a great test for me to keep competing the way I have and keep raising my level.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Britain\u2019s Johanna Konta won through to her first semi-final since Wimbledon last year with a 6-4, 6-2 victory over Dalila Jakupovic in the WTA tour event in Nottingham — a warm-up for the lone grass-court Grand Slam. Konta next faces Donna Vekic of Croatia, who beat her in the Nottingham final 12 months ago. Friday\u2019s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":34350,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[122],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-34349","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34349","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34349"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34349\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":34351,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34349\/revisions\/34351"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/34350"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34349"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34349"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34349"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}