Top seed Simona Halep was pushed to her limit during her challenging 6-4, 2-6, 6-1, win over France’s Caroline Garcia at the Apia international in Sydney.
Halep was playing in her first match of the season after withdrawing from Brisbane last week due to an Achilles injury. The world No.2 started off well after breaking Garcia to love in the fifth game of the match to generate an early lead. The encounter was however far from Straightforward for Halep, who had to fend off three break points in three of her service games to take the opening set against the world No.34.
After taking the early lead, injury-plagued Halep came undone during the second set after some inspired play from Garcia. The biggest difference between the first and second set for the Frenchwoman was her second serve winning rate, which almost doubled from 44% to 82%. The surge in Garcia’s serve proved problematic for Halep as she couldn’t generate a single break point during the second set. In contrast Garcia took the initiative by converting back-to-back breaks to take the match into a deciding third set.
Following Garcia’s second set triumph, Halep called a trainer to court to treat her ongoing Achilles problem. During her medical time out the world No.2 complained that the pain ‘comes and goes’. Following the treatment, Halep decided to continue in the match with the help of some painkillers.
Despite her injury worries, the second set scare didn’t appear to trouble the top seed after Garcia produced an error-stricken final set. After converting an early break to lead 2-1, Halep then extended her stronghold in the match after a double fault from Garcia handed her another break to move ahead 4-1. With a commanding lead, there was no chance of Halep suffering a shock loss. Another forehand unforced error from Garcia handed Halep two match points. After failing to convert her first, the Romanian was successful on her second after Garcia missed an easy shot at the net.
In her first match of 2016, Halep produced 18 winners compared to 24 unforced errors. In addition the world No.2 claimed 61% of her service points. Discussing her injury time-out, Halep admitted after the match that she considered retiring at one point.
In the last eight Halep will play fifth seed Karolina Pliskova. The Czech player was impressive during her second round victory against Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova. Pliskova dropped only three games as she took the 6-3, 6-0, victory in under an hour. Halep has played Pliskova twice last year, winning both encounters in straight sets.
Sara Errani Battles to victory
Another player to progress to the last eight was world No.19 Sara Errani. The Italian endured a marathon two sets encounter against Jelena Jankovic before winning 7-6(3), 7-6(8). In the second set Errani was trailing 1-5, before staging an epic comeback to force a tiebreaker. During the match Jankovic produced an outstanding 60 unforced errors compared to Errani’s 23. Speaking about the second set, Errani said that when she trailed 1-5, she didn’t feel that far behind Jankovic.
“Yeah, it was 5-1, but I had many games with 40-Love, 40-15, and advantage, and so it didn’t really feel like 5-1,” Errani said.
“I was just thinking that I was near my best level, and to just try to keep going, play all the points, and finally was 5-All, and 5-5, 6-All, and really tough the tiebreaker.”
Errani will play Svetlana Kuznetsova in the last eight. The Russian battled past Sabine Lisicki 6-3, 3-6,6-2.
In the bottom half of the draw the only seeded player to reach the quarterfinals was Belinda Bencic. The Swiss player defeated former champion Tsvetana Pironkova in straight sets (6-3,6-3). Bencic will now face Ekaterina Makarova. Makarova progressed after Angelique Kerber withdrew due to illness. Finally, Sam Stosur booked a last eight showdown with Monica Puig after defeating Daniela Hantuchova 6-4, 6-2.
