Roland Garros: Halep defeats “experienced” Stephens - UBITENNIS

Roland Garros: Halep defeats “experienced” Stephens

By Staff
4 Min Read

TENNIS ROLAND GARROS – Simona Halep will compete in her first ever Roland Garros quarter final after taking care of Sloane Stephens in two nervous sets 6-4 6-3. Giulio Gasparin

Interviews, Results, OOP, Draws from the Roland Garros

The fourth seed played far from her best, but managed to lift her game in the crucial moments of both the first and second set, differently from the American, who closed the match with a bad miss.

The match certainly developed in a way that Stephens did not expect, as ahead of this match she had remarked how Halep’s ranking was done of many good runs in small tournaments, while she had “lots of experience” at slam level.

However, it surely is not easy for the Romanian to be the highest seed left in the tournament, when her best result in slams is a quarter finals reached in January at the Australian Open.

Traces of this tension showed throughout the match, as Halep looked slightly more faulty than she usually is, especially with her serve.

On the other side of the net, Stephens showed all the skills that took her to this fourth round, including a surprisingly solid backhand and terrific defence.

In the very first game, the fourth seed faced a break point before holding. Then she seemed swift in putting the doubts behind as she broke the American to love.

Errors started leaking again and Stephens found a three games streak to take the lead.

Halep reacted immediately and by cutting down the number of errors, she broke back and held with authority.

The young American kept her nerves and forced the score to 4-4 after a very tight service game, to which a spectacular one followed on the Romanian’s serve.

On 40-15 for the fourth seed, Stephens won the longest point of the match after a gruelling 24-shot-long rally and it seemed as if she could turn the match around as she suddenly had a chance to break.

Halep shut this door with an outstanding backhand down the line winner, before holding the serve and breaking her opponent with another trade-mark backhand, which gave her the set as well.

The second set started well for the former junior champion here, as she went up 2-0, but then for four consecutive games neither her nor Stephens managed to hold.

On 4-2, Halep raised her game and in few minutes she hit an ace and two more winners to hold and force the American to serve to stay in the match.

Stephens accomplished this first task with the best service game of her match, but it all seemed to come too late, as Halep did not let the chance go and in the very next game she held to seize the match.

When in her press conference before the match Stephens said “I just peak at four tournaments a year” and “Every other tournament, I guess, just get me ready for these,” she was not lying though, as she surely showed the best of her repertoire today, but it was not enough against the Romanian.

Halep is now waiting for her opponent to come from a match between former Roland Garros champion Svetlana Kuznetsova and Lucie Safarova.

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