Simona Halep vs Sloane Stephens (3-6, 6-4, 6-1)
Third time’s the charm, and Simona Halep was hoping that this year’s French Open results end up in her favour. Talks of her inconsistency and her tendency to collapse on the biggest games that she is involved in. A loss here would have doomed Halep to a long stint of ridicule and disappointment from tennis supporters and SBOBET subscribers.
However, it seems that third time’s the charm, after all. The Romanian and World No 1 has finally won Roland Garros after falling short in 2014 and 2017. Almost everyone in Halep’s camp couldn’t fight back the waterworks as they saw the Romanian finally end her long, hard trophy-less drought.
She has finally won her first Major and sits at the top of the world. There are very few people who can stop Simona Halep the way she is now.
Highlights of the Game
The game started with Women’s Singles runner-up Sloane Stephens playing strong. She hounded Halep on every possible opportunity, attacking Halep and forcing her to chase after the ball on the edges of the court.
While Halep is a terrific counterpuncher, she wasn’t able to get to her groove as the American kept on powering attack after attack. She eventually dropped the first set 3-6, but her defensive performance during the opener was something that fans marvelled on and is something coaches would show their wards whenever they want to make a point about defence in clay-court tennis.
After the first set was taken from her, it wouldn’t be hard to imagine that Halep was lightly mulling if her nightmares would come back to haunt her. After all, anyone who fails to win three of his/her last Grand Slam finals is bound to get a kick in his/her confidence levels.
However, the 26-year-old fought on and made sure that none of the yips she was enduring would affect her performance for the rest of the match. She battled, kept her service games and did enough with her counterpunching tennis in order to wrestle back control from Stephens and force a deciding third set.
It was in this set that Halep finally established her winning stroke and won game after game. While Stephens was able to get a game, it was too little too late: Halep can smell the Coupe Suzanne Lenglen and there is no way she’ll slip up at this point.
In the final play of the Women’s Singles, Halep was up 40-30 and was at the match point. She made a powerful serve that blitzed through the middle and into Stephens. The 25-year-old Stephens could only do so much as try to send the ball back to Halep’s court. The ball didn’t fly past the net and bounced towards Stephens’ court.
After that, Halep dropped her racket, covered her face, got a warm embrace from Stephens and celebrated with the Philippe-Chatrier Court.
Key Statistics
The most eye-catching statistic for me has to be Stephens’ inability to convert first-ball points after the first set. In the second set, she only converted 10 of her 23 first-ball attempts and heavily relied on Halep’s unforced errors to make it through. Set 3 became a lot harder for the American as her Romanian foe cleaned up her tennis and allowed little errors for her to capitalise.
Another interesting statistic to be seen here is Stephens’ net dashes in the third set. Compared to the first two sets, it seems that her dashes were made in an attempt to shake things up. Unfortunately, Halep’s mental state and impressive defence didn’t allow many points to go Stephens’ way.
However, the most interesting statistics have to be the involvement of the two ladies who played in this final. Not only is this Halep’s first Grand Slam win after three attempts, this is also the first time a Romanian woman won the French Open in 40 years. The last one to win it was Virginia Ruizici, her long-time mentor who cried with her on the court, in 1978.
Moreover, Stephens has never performed well at Roland Garros ever since she started competing in the tournament in 2011. The farthest she reached before the tournament was always during the fourth round, so it was quite a surprise to many that she made it all the way to the final and give Halep a decent challenge.
What’s Next?
Now that Halep’s demons are behind her, the World No 1 can now focus on winning the other Grand Slams and continuing her dominant streak at the top of the WTA rankings. Fans will definitely be searching every Simona Halep news they find as the Romanian will definitely not let the momentum stop here.
With the grass-court season now fast approaching, she can now look forward to winning Wimbledon and making 2018 a very successful year for her. She has reached the Wimbledon quarter-finals for two consecutive years, and this could be the year that she breaks through to the final at Centre Court.
Meanwhile, Stephens will also be looking to improve upon her performance on the grass. In fact, Wimbledon is the only Grand Slam where she hasn’t made the fourth round yet. This is the perfect opportunity for the American to ride her own wave of good form and improve upon her performances on the grass.
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