Simona Halep, the former world No. 1, improved her French Open preparations with a 6-4 6-4 victory against American Coco Gauff in the Madrid Open quarter-finals. Halep, who won the French Open in 2018 and the Madrid championship twice, is unseeded after her ranking dropped last year due to injuries, but she has yet to drop a set in this year’s tournament.
“It was not easy to adjust”- Simona Halep
On Monday, the Romanian was at her most aggressive on the red clay, but she couldn’t break until the American teenager made a sequence of unforced errors, leaving her down 5-4. Simona Halep, who is now ranked 21st in the world, served out the set, but it just fueled Gauff’s confidence as the 18-year-old grew more confident. In the second set, she raced to a 3-0 lead after finding success at the net. As Gauff’s error count continued to rise, the Romanian counter-puncher soon regrouped and fought back, breaking twice to go up 5-4 before sealing off the match in 77 minutes.
“I felt like I played the exactly what I had to play. In the second set she changed a little bit,” Halep said in a post-match interview.
“She’s been more aggressive and it was not easy to adjust, but in the end, I pushed her back and I did what I wanted to do… We played a few times so I knew what to expect,” she added.
Simona Halep will square off against Ons Jabeur
Halep will face Tunisian eighth seed Ons Jabeur, who defeated Belinda Bencic 6-2 3-6 6-2 in a previous match played under the dome due to rain. “Just a reminder guys, Simona won against Paula Badosa (in the previous round) and she’s Spanish. So if she wins you have to cheer for me,” Jabeur said.
