Romanian tennis player Simona Halep has qualified on Tuesday to the last sixteen round of the Citi Open tournament in Washington, with total prizes of USD 226,750, after defeating Sloane Stephens (US) 7-6 (3), 6-0.
The American showed flashes of the play that made her a champion here in 2015, where she won her first WTA title, but against Halep’s famous consistency she eventually found her shots breaking down. After trading breaks early on, the pair stayed on serve to bring up a tiebreaker, wtatennis.com informs.
Stephens bided her time and stayed on the offensive, her backhand down the line doing the most damage, but Halep picked her off as mistakes in her timing and footwork caused the unforced errors to pile up.
After edging through the opening set, Halep found herself in cruise control and reeled off the next six games in a row with little trouble to wrap up the match after an hour and 19 minutes. Halep and Stephens’ winners count was nearly even at nine and eight, respectively, but Stephens’ 48 unforced errors to Halep’s 23 cost her dearly.
Through to the second round, top seed Halep will take on Mariana Duque-Mariño (115th WTA) next for a spot in the Citi Open quarterfinals.
“It was a very tough first set, I made a few mistakes and she had some good points. As for the first round and the first match on hard court, it wasn’t a bad game. In the second set I played better. I always play better after Daren Cahill comes to me on the court. He told me I don’t serve best but I can win,” Halep said, according to hotnews.ro. She also thanked the fans for supporting her.
Another Romanian tennis player, Patricia Tig (134th WTA), has also qualified to the second round, after defeating Heather Watson 7-6 (4), 7-6 (3). In the last sixteen round, Tig will face the winner of the match between Monica Niculescu and Nao Hibino.
For the time being, the two players will collect 30 WTA points and a cheque for USD 3,420.
In men’s competition, Marius Copil was defeated on Tuesday by Jack Sock 7-6 (2), 7-6 (6).
Tecau and Rojer qualify to the next round in doubles
The pair made up by Horia Tecau and Jean-Julien Rojer (Netherlands) has qualified to the quarter-finals in Washington, after defeating Grigor Dimitrov/Lucas Pouille 6-3, 7-6 (2).
In the next round the Romanian-Dutch pair will face second seeded pair Lukasz Kubot/Marcelo Melo.