Maria Sharapova splits apart Simona Halep in round three – BNP Paribas Open 2012
Former world number one, Maria Sharapova, took her Romanian opponent, Simona Halep, to the ride of her worst nightmares in the third round clash of the BNP Paribas Open. She junked her in straight sets 6-3, 6-4.
The scores don’t do justice to the Russian. She definitely was the more superior player and deserved a more thumping score line than this. She was absolutely breathtaking in all aspects of the game; battering her opponent down
and allowing no opportunity to the Romanian to settle into the atmosphere.
Halep started off well in the match but the Russian took over the control and converted a couple of breakpoints to take the lead in the midst of the set. She bagged 34 points in total and took the opening set with a difference
of six points.
Sharapova converted 71 per cent of her first serves but was poor on her second serves that donated few points to her opponent. She saved three out of three breakpoints and converted both of them allotted to her. The overall performance
was terrific from the beauty queen who has always been supported by the crowd wherever she goes.
The second set was not much different from the first half. The slender-legged Russian took her game to the next level and kept on the onslaught. She grabbed the set from the throat and met her opponent blow-by-blow. She donated
a couple of breakpoints to her opponent but not before bagging three breakthroughs to take a resounding lead of 5-0.
She won 39 points in total compared to just 31 of her rival in the second set. Sharapova made some mistakes in the match but that were overridden by her eye-startling display in the rest of the rallies. She marches on into the
fourth round of the tournament.
The next victim of the Russian is probably the Italian tennis ace, Roberta Vinci, who registered an upset against the Slovak beauty starlet, Dominika Cibulkova, in the third round. Vinci will have to dig deep to overpower the Russian
who is in no mood to spare anyone since the beginning of 2012.
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