Romania's Buzarnescu advances to semis at WTA tournament in Hiroshima

Romanian tennis player Mihaela Buzarnescu qualified on Friday for the semifinals of the WTA tournament in Hiroshima (Japan), with prizes worth 250,000 US dollars, after defeating Belgian Alison van Uytvanck, 3rd seed, with a score of 6-4, 7-5. 

Buzarnescu (aged 31, WTA's 125th) managed her best result this year, being the first time when scoring three consecutive victories. 

Buzarnescu now has 2-1 in direct matches against van Uytvanck. She also defeated her in 2017 in Poitiers (France, 100.000 US dollars), 6-4 6-2, but the Belgian tennis player got back in 2018, in Budapest, in the round of 16, 6-1, 6-0. 

Buzarnescu secured a cheque worth 11,300 US dollars and 110 WTA points, and in the semis, she will face off Japan's Nao Hibino, who defeated on Friday the main seed, namely Taiwanese Su-Wei Hsieh, with a score of 6-4, 6-3. It will be the first event between Mihaela Buzarnescu and Nao Hibino (aged 24, WTA's 146th).