Romanian Sorana Cirstea has made her first semifinal appearance in the Rome WTA 1000 clay-court tournament, which boasts a prize fund of $8,312,293. The 26th seed defeated Lithuania's Jelena Ostapenko 6-1, 7-6(0) in the quarterfinals, a match that lasted one hour and 33 minutes.

At 36, this is Cirstea's last season on the WTA tour. She will face the winner of the match between the third seed and last year's finalist Coco Gauff (USA) and the eighth seed, Russian Mira Andreeva.

In the first set, Cirstea and Ostapenko traded one game each before the Romanian won the next five to secure a 6-1 victory. In the second set, Cirstea, who previously defeated the top seed Aryna Sabalenka in the third round, overcame a deficit from 2-4 and 3-5 to reach 5-5. She then dominated the tiebreak, winning seven consecutive points.