2011 French Open: Simona Halep breezes into the second round
Romanian Simona Halep eased past Russian Alla Kudryavtseva 6-2, 6-1 in her first round match at 2011 Roland Garros on Sunday.
After overpowering Russian a month ago at Fes, Halep improved her winning ways at Stade Roland Garros as she clinched with a breadstick to book a second round spot in just under an hour. She has now extended her lead in the head-to-head
series by 2-0 against Kudryavtseva.
19-year-old Romanian high spiritedly entered the first set and held her opening serves plausibly. Later she lost her serve once but roared back by breaking the Russian’s serve three times to eventually clinch with a 6-2 win. Halep
produced a much better first serve share of 57 percent as compared to Kudryavtseva’s 38 percent and registered a convincing 59 percent win on it.
She kept momentum floating into the final set and held her opening serve superbly. The youngster then held his remaining serves with her exquisite forehands and broke the Russian’s serve twice to seal the set with a breadstick
in just twenty-three minutes.
Overall, Halep saved two out of three breakpoints faced and converted both breakpoint opportunities to her advantage to help win comfortably. She smacked two aces and committed seven unforced errors to Russian’s twenty-six which
made the difference.
World number 67, Halep hasn’t had much progress this season so far but she re-created her magic at Fes where she made a final berth. However, she was standing at a three match losing streak before entering this Grand Slam event.
The Romanian practiced hard after arriving at Paris and her hard work was repaid with a breadstick win in this match.
Kudryavtseva, on the other hand, extended her losing streak to four matches. Except for reaching the quarters at Estoril, she showed drastic performance this season. The Russian produced a poor first serve share and also clobbered
many double faults. She hammered eleven winners but saved only one breakpoint.
Next challenge for Halep is the eighth seed, Samantha Stosur who downed Czech Iveta Benesova in straight sets to reach this spot.
The seeded Australian capitalised on the five double faults and nineteen unforced errors which Benesova produced to seal the deal with a 6-2, 6-3 success in sixty-eight minutes. Stosur saved two out of four breakpoints conceded
and converted six out of ten breakpoint opportunities to her advantage to advance into the second round.
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