World No.1 Simona Halep scored her second win in a row on Thursday, easing past seven-time Grand Slam champion Venus Williams in straight sets at the Rogers Cup in Montreal.
Fresh off a three-hour victory over Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova, top seed Simona Halep put on a ruthless display to edge past Venus Williams, also playing her second match of the day, 6-2, 6-2, to reach the quarterfinals of the Coupe Rogers, wtatennis.com informs.
“It was good that it was so short after that first long match,” Halep said in press. “I saw that Venus was not feeling great, so we cannot talk about this match too much. But I’m happy even in this situation I could win the match.”
Halep was initially scheduled to open Wednesday’s night session, but was forced off court due to an unceasing storm.
Resuming on Thursday afternoon, the Romanian needed three grueling sets to outlast the Russian, but was far more emphatic against Williams, advancing after one hour and 11 minutes on court.
“I feel better. I feel more relaxed. That first match was really important. I got very tired. But then I had about four hours to recover. It was good. We will see tomorrow when I wake up because for sure I will be sore.”
Up next for the reigning Roland Garros champion is No.6 seed Caroline Garcia, who was similarly decisive against former World No.1 Maria Sharapova hours earlier.
Halep defeated the Frenchwoman last year at the Rogers Cup in Toronto and won their last two meetings at the BNP Paribas WTA Finals Singapore presented by SC Global and the Internazionali BNL d’Italia.
Last year the tournament was played in Toronto and Halep reached the Rogers Cup semi-finals. She won the trophy in 2016, in Montreal.