Simona Halep and Greta Arn move it into the second round of 2011 Grand Prix SAR
Romania’s Simona Halep knocked out Anastasiya Yakimova of Belarus 6-2, 6-0 on Monday to make it to the second round at the 2011 Grand Prix De Sar La Princesse Lalla Meryem in Fes, Morocco.
The 19-year-old Halep looked well settled and composed right from the beginning of the game. She didn’t allow her Belarusian opponent to crack her serves during the whole match. The Romanian Pro absolutely commanded both the sets and gave her opponent a considerable run for the love of Champions trophy and money. The Romanian player won the match with a loss of just two games and went on to seal her win in less than 60 minutes of play.
In the first set, the Romanian was phenomenal as compared to her opponent. She just committed a single double fault and won 67 percent on her first serves while her opponent lagged behind with a meager 33 percent.
The Romanian kept her winning momentum and played exceptionally well in the second set as well. The second set saw an improved and more refined Halep who didn’t allow her opponent to break back and took the set with a bagel. The match was an easy one for the Romanian, who broke her opponent twice and saved 70 percent of her breakpoints in return. She committed just two double faults during the whole match whereas her opponent committed seven. Furthermore Halep scored 52 of 76 points in total while the Belarusian pro was at her worse, converting just 24 of them.
Yakimova who lost the match in straight sets had high expectations to gain better results after her constant losses in her most of the recent matches. She was moved past by the Czech Klara Zakopalova at Marbella in straight sets.
Simona Halep, on the other hand, played tremendously well and scored majority of points to conclude a deserving win. The 19-year-old has been doing continuously well in most of her matches. She kicked off the year at the Auckland, where she reached the quarterfinals of the tournament but lost to the eventual runner-up Yanina Wickmayer of Belgium in straight sets. She looks very hopeful and will be playing against Alla Kudryavtseva of Russia in the next round.
In another match during the day, Greta Arn of Hungary cruised to a comfortable win 6-0, 1-0 against Austrian Patricia Mayr-Achleitner to reach the second round in Fes, Morocco.
The 32-year-old Hungarian was up 1-0 in the second set when her Austrian opponent retired and gave away the match in two sets.
With her powerful two-handed backhands, she won 100 percent of her break points and had a much higher first serve winning percentage of 83 percent as opposed to Mayr-Achleitner’s 36 percent. Along with this, she earned 61 percent of total points in the whole match.
Arn kicked off the year by putting in her appearance at the 2011 ASB Classic, Auckland where she reached the finals of the tournament and defeated Yanina Wickmayer of Belgium to claim her first title at the tournament.
Arn will face Kristyna Pliskova of Czech Republic in the second round of the tournament.
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