In 2015, Simona Halep walked onto the BNP Baribas Center Court having started her season in blistering form; a Australian Open quarter finalist, she had already won tournaments in Shenzen, and the WTA Premiere event in Dubai. Her game was fluid, focused. She continually retrieved balls that seem irretrievable. She was changing from defense to offense on a dime, using running drop shots, cross court loopers, and slappers down the line to steal points from her opponents. She stood in on the second serve, was aggressive with both pace and placement of those returns. She left Indian Wells with the champions crystal trophy and with much of the world declaring her the lone challenger to Serena’s dominance on tour.
Flash forward to 2016. Halep will walk out onto the court the defending champion, but with form that would make it hard to identify her as the same Simona Halep that most tennis fans have swooned over the past 3 years. Halep enters the tourney with out having won a tourney since Indian Wells last year. Although she did push Serena deep into third sets last year (Miami, Cincinnati) she never seemed to gain the momentum needed from those results to catapult her as a true number 1 contender. After a semifinal thrashing at the hands of eventual champion Flavia Penetta at the US Open, Halep never seemed to regain her confidence or form and sputtered to the finish line of 2015 with early round losses in most of her tourneys. 2016 has started no better for her, having lost in the first round of the Aussie Open, Dubai, and Doha. Although still 5th in the WTA Singles Ranking, in this year’s Road to Singapore standings, Halep finds herself in 81st place. She is behind countrywoman Monica Niculescu (#52) and Sorana Cristea (#72). To say Halep is underachieving when considering the on court gifts and talents she brings to the game is a gross understatement. What has happened to Halep?
The most notable difference in Halep at the end of 2016 and 2016 is a huge lack in confidence and nerve. Halep made a name for herself as a fierce competitor, never afraid to go for a gutsy shot, never afraid to pull the trigger during big points in big moments. That player has been absent for most of the last 6 months. During these past months, Halep has struggled with some nagging injuries–an achilles injury being at the forefront of those. Halep, one of the best movers and pure athletes on tour, is so very reliant on her movement, that any detracting from that not only hurts her game, but obviously hurts her confidence in her game. Halep has noted in a recent interview with the Desert Sun that she has, “forgotten” the first 2 months of this season, and that Indian Wells is a “new start” for her. She has spent time the past few weeks working with a combination of Daren Cahill and hall of famers Andre Agassi and Steffi Graff.
Hoping to draw inspiration and confidence from the two, Halep told the Sun, ” it’s not easy to come back and it’s tough to go on court again to play matches, but I’m here for this reason and I have been practicing hard for this tournament and I will be ready for sure.”
Halep’s problems are also compounded that she is known on tour to be the type of player who gains confidence from match play. Injuries hampered her match play at the end of 2015. Lack of match play affected both confidence and performance which lead to early round losses, which just compounded in even more loss of match play. Ironically for Halep to gain the match play to get the confidence she needs to be in top match form, she has to win matches and make deep runs in tourneys. She is not the type to just walk into a tournament and turn it on, like a Sharapova or Serena. As Halep explained to the WTA Tour Insider pod cast:
“It’s not about pressure. It’s just that I need the matches, many matches, because I had a tough period before.”
Indian Wells provides a chance for Halep to both reclaim her confidence, her ranking, and her spot in the discussion of the WTA elite. To make a deep run, Halep will have to advance in a quarter of the draw where she would have to face Serena in the quarter final stage, but opens with a very winnable match against American veteran (making her own comeback) Vania King. This is a fractured time in the WTA. Questions about about typical elite stalwarts Kvitova, Azarenka, and Radwanska abound. Sharapova’s drug testing results will likely put her out of tennis for at least a year. The up and comers like Belinda Bencic, Garbine Muguruza, and Elina Svitolina have all had success, but also failures in their climb up the rankings. Will Kerber establish herself as a true #2 to Serena; will she challenge for #1? If there was ever an opportunity for a confident Halep to reestablish her presence at the top of the tour– it is this week in the dry desert heat and pink sunsets of Indian Wells, California.
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