Simona Halep, the top seed at the Tournament of Champions, defeated Elina Svitolina 6-1, 6-1 in Sofia today, meaning that she has not only not dropped a match in the Group Serdika round robin play, but also has not dropped a set.
However, all is not perfect in Romania. In yesterday's match against Alize Cornet, Halep had a terrible time with her serve, making repeated attempts to get the job done in straight sets. She did win, 6-4, 6-4, but it wasn't pretty. She's probably very tired; that was her 50th match win of the season. Also, walking onto the court to screams of "Simona! Simona! Simona!" maybe put her under a bit of pressure? Just saying.
Either Cornet or Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova will join Halep in the semifinals; they play one another tomorrow.
In Group Sredets, it's a three-way tie among Ana Ivanovic, Sam Stosur and Elena Vesnina to determine who goes to the semifinals. Ivanovic has won the tournament twice before; today, she defeated Stosur 6-2, 5-7. 6-2.
In Nanjing, Ayumi Morita--a player who is always kind of on the verge of breaking out--played her second round match over a course of two days because of a rain delay, and saved seven match points against Petra Martic. Morita defeated Martic 6-7 (7), 7-6 (10), 6-4. Wow.
The best footwork on the tour - Simona!
ReplyDeleteHer footwork is outstanding and obviosly something she's worked on a lot. I'm eager to see what she does in the off-season (such as it is). At this point, it's the serve that's most in need of consistency.
ReplyDeleteAlso, when she played Cornet she got kind of passive and just waited for mistakes. Fortunately foe her, she got them.
And on to Roland Garros.......