Simona Halep may have stayed close to home when she was a junior, but she has since entered all sorts of unchartered territory: becoming the first Romanian player to enter the World’s top five. On Sunday she will face Serena Williams in the final of the Cincinnati Masters; whatever happens, she will return to the #2 spot ahead of the US Open. We look at Halep’s rise to the top and at her clash with Williams.
At the end of 2012, when Serena Williams resided at #3 in the world and had recent Wimbledon and US Open titles to her name, Simona Halep made her first break into the top 50. Unlike many of her would-be peers in the upper echelons of the game, the young Halep did not take the orthodox route for top junior players and relocate to America or Spain to train at some of the esteemed academies. Instead, she relocated to the capital city of her home country Romania: Bucharest, to seek further developments in her game. This was to pay dividends as in 2008; she performed impressively to win the Junior Roland Garros at the age of 17.
The story of many juniors reads similar to this though: stunning junior wins and titles for their endeavours, with the promise of a senior career of matching grandeur and success. But in actuality, many struggle to keep to this promise. The transition from the junior to the senior circuit is a turbulent and arduous task. Yet the same year of Halep’s Junior French Open triumph came two ITF senior $10,000 titles in Bucharest, and then a $25,000 title a bit further afield in Kristinehamn, Sweden. Further success came in 2009, and again some of the most notable progress came in Bucharest, with a quarterfinal showing in an ITF $100,000 event. Again, dissimilar to many of the players who rise to the summit of the women’s game, Halep did not pursue tournaments all over the world and predominately stuck to events in Eastern Europe. In 2010, there were appearances in both the French and US Open main draws and then in 2011 came two top player scalps – with Halep, still only 19, defeating Svetlana Kuznetsova and Li Na.
But the Simona Halep that so calmly disposed of the vastly experienced Jelena Jankovic 6-1 6-2 yesterday, truly came about in 2013, where she won her first six WTA titles – emulating the great Steffi Graf who in 1986 won her first seven WTA titles within one calendar year. Subsequently, the Romanian broke the world’s top 10 at the start of 2014 and was recognised as the WTA’s Most Improved Player of 2013.
Justine Henin has said: “She [Simona Halep] has an intelligent game. There is a little something that reminds me of myself… it is offensive and aggressive.” And we saw the best of this “aggressive baseliner” style at Roland Garros in 2014. Smaller tennis players such as Halep are often seen as disadvantaged by their diminutive size. But Halep utilizes her low centre of gravity to be a compact and fluid mover across the baseline, allowing her to counterpunch so effectively and cope with players who perhaps possess more power than her. We saw the best of this in Paris, 2014; in this year at Toronto and indeed Cincinnati, we are seeing a similar rich vein of form.
Contrastingly, Serena Williams appears off the pace. The American’s serve, so reliable usually, deserted her in the semifinal against Svitolina, with only 54% first serves going in. Williams’ serve was also wandering astray in the previous round. Ominously, Halep won 70% of her second serve return points versus Jankovic, and was clinical in taking her break point chances, winning 7/10 of them. Serena leads the head to head 5-1, yet the two’s last meeting in Miami was an extremely tight affair and Halep delivered a crushing defeat to Williams in the WTA finals last year, 6-2 6-0, in what was Serena’s first match where she won only two games on the WTA or Grand Slam stage since 1998. Yet, only a few days later in the final of that same event, Williams dispatched Halep 6-3 6-0. Their clash on Sunday will likewise be in a high pressure final, but whether Williams will thrive under this pressure is another matter. With the media spotlight making its descent upon her in anticipation of the US Open, and the year Grand Slam soon to be on the line, will Williams be extra motivated? Or will she finally feel the strain? There have been a few imperfections in Serena’s game recently; Halep has the weapons, and the form, to profit. And at the age of 23, in the long term, she could trouble Serena as the curtain closes on her own career.
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