Budapest Grand Prix - Semifinals

6th seed Chanelle Scheepers is into her second WTA semifinal of 2013.

It has been an upset-filled week in Budapest, with 5 seeds falling before the quarterfinals including the #1 and #2 seeds in the first round. Lucie Safarova managed one game against 190th ranked Valeria Solovyeva in an ugly 1-6, 0-6 loss in the first round. Second seed Alize Cornet also fell in straight sets to Andrea Hlavackova 4-6, 2-6. 5th seed Johanna Larsson, 7th seed Maria-Teresa Torro-Flor, and 8th seed Anna Tatishvili all fell at the second hurdle. The new Austrian #1 Yvonne Meusburger reached her first WTA semifinal outside of Bad Gastein by routing 4th seed Annika Beck 6-4, 6-1. 6th seed Chanelle Scheepers needed a third set tiebreak to defeat Danka Kovinic 4-6, 6-0, 7-6(7-5) who is the first tennis player from Montenegro to reach a tour level quarterfinal. Romanians Simona Halep and Alexandra Cadantu advanced in straight sets and set a clash in the semifinals. Halep is now into her 4th straight WTA semifinal outside of the Grand Slams.

My predictions for Budapest went awry as 3 of my 4 semifinalists went out in the first round. However, I did correctly predict 4 of 8 quarterfinalists. However, in this crazy part of the season, it is expected to get a lot of wrong predictions as there are a lot of unknown names making the cut off for the main draw.

(6)Chanelle Scheepers RSA vs Yvonne Meusburger AUT

Scheepers has had a so-so year, but has had some decent results in some smaller tournaments. Meusburger has mostly been playing on the ITF tour this year, and jumped Tamira Paszek in the rankings for the #1 Austrian. Truthfully, I know nothing about either players style of play though I know they have had decent results before. However, I think Meusburger is picking up speed as she picked off two seeds on her way to the quarterfinals and there is no reason why Scheepers can't be the 3rd straight... Scheepers will be tired after barely surviving Danka Kovinic in the quarterfinals.

Prediction: Meusburger in 2 tight sets

(3)Simona Halep ROU vs Alexandra Cadantu ROU

Halep has been on an absolute hot streak as of late, reaching the semifinals of a Premier 5 event in Rome in May and winning her first two WTA titles in June. Her only losses in the last 6 tournaments were to top 20 players in Serena Williams, Carla Suarez Navarro, and Li Na. She has not dropped a set all week, and faces fellow Romanian Cadantu, who is into her second WTA semifinal of the year. Cadantu took advantage of the upsets on her side of the draw, as well as a retirement in the second round to reach the semifinals. Halep knocked off two Hungarians, and will probably not be the crowd favorite in this semifinal. However, Halep's great run of form will be enough to see of Cadantu.

Prediction: Halep in 2 sets (1 easy, 1 tight)