Samantha Stosur proves too strong for Simona Halep in the second round – French Open 2011
World number eight Samantha Stosur, capped the day’s matches with a 6-0, 6-2 win over Simona Halep of Romania on the clay courts at the Stade Roland Garros on Wednesday. Stosur concluded her straight sets victory in one hour and entered the third round for the fourth time in her career.
Halep was appearing in the second round of the French Open for the first time in her career, after having defeated Alla Kudryavtseva on Wednesday, but the 2010 finalist was far less forgiving. After Stosur broke the Romanian in the sixth game of the first set she relentlessly forced Halep into mistakes. Stosur immediately broke Halep again at the start of the second set as the Romanian was pinned back on the baseline by Stosur’s power-hitting.
Eighth seed Stosur hit eleven winners and committed four unforced errors to win the first set 6-0 against Halep. She scored 67 percent of points on her first serve in the 6-2 second set, before Halep finally lost the match in straight sets.
Despite Halep’s age and inexperience, the Romanian proved that she was no fool, producing some classy tennis to worry Stosur in the second set.
Halep held serve for only the second time in the second set to make Stosur close out the match, and she completed the task with the same coolness she had shown in the first round match where she defeated Iveta Benesova of Czech Republic. Aussie dug deep and her trademark serve stepped up the level of her game. As the second set tied at 2-2, Halep missed the chance to fight back and shrieked in panic as Stosur punished her for it to go four up. Stosur fired ten winners, 54 percent of first serve and won an impressive 71 percent of points on them. In contrast, Halep hammered nine winners and won a meager 50 percent on her first serve.
Emerging victorious today, Stosur has improved her year-to-date win loss mark to 21-12 matches and now moves on ahead to face Gisela Dulko of Argentina in the next round. Dulko battled past Tsvetana Pironkova of Bulgaria in the second round to make it this far. Stosur and Gisela have already met each other two times at the second round of Madrid Masters with Stosur leading their head-to-head by 2-0.
The path will undoubtedly get tougher for the Australian, but her 21 winners and gutsy play combined with her history of strong play on the clay courts make her a real threat.
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