Tennis : Bencic upsets Svitolina in the Dubai Tennis Championships semi-finals

Belinda Bencic reached her biggest final for three and a half years as she continued her superb week at the Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships by upsetting two-time defending champion Elina Svitolina. Bencic was a prodigious talent and broke into the top 10 as a teenager by winning the Rogers Cup in Canada in the summer of 2015. Injuries stalled her progress over the next two years but the Swiss, who is still only 21, now appears back to her best and followed up her victories over Aryna Sabalenka and Simona Halep by seeing off Svitolina 6-2 3-6 7-6 (3). Bencic, who will climb back into the top 30 on Monday, trailed 5-3 in the deciding set and then saw three match points come and go in the 12th game before dominating the tie-break. In the final, Bencic will take on second seed Petra Kvitova, who is maintaining her strong start to the season after making the final of the Australian Open.