Red-hot Danielle Collins continued her torrid run with a semifinal victory Friday and will face fellow American Madison Keys in the championship match of the Internationaux de Strasbourg in France on Saturday.
The third-seeded Collins had 31 winners while cruising to a 7-6 (3), 6-2 victory in 99 minutes over Ukraine’s Anhelina Kalinina for her 22th victory in her past 24 matches. Collins will be looking for her third title of the season Saturday after earlier winning back-to-back events in Miami and Charleston.
Keys, the No. 4 seed, converted 6 of 10 break points in her 6-1, 6-3 victory over fifth-seeded Russian Liudmila Samsonova. Keys finished the match in 67 minutes. She will be seeking her eighth career title.
Collins and Keys have split two previous meetings. Collins won the last one in 2020 in Brisbane, Australia.
The match against Collins was the second of the day for Kalinina. She earlier upset top-seeded Czech Marketa Vondrousova 5-7, 6-3, 6-2 in a quarterfinal match that was postponed a day due to rain.
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American Peyton Stearns will be looking for her first career title after outlasting Bulgaria’s Viktoriya Tomova 6-7 (6), 7-5, 7-6 (4) in the semifinals at Rabat, Morocco.
Stearns converted 8 of 12 break points while prevailing in three hours and 15 minutes. She will face Egypt’s Mayar Sherif in Saturday’s title match.
Sherif was on court for just 61 minutes while sailing to a 6-0, 6-1 victory over Russia’s Kamilla Rakhimova. Sherif will be looking for her second career title.
