'I feel great' - Simona Halep demolishes Paula Badosa to reach last-16 at Madrid Open
/dnl.eurosport.com/sd/img/placeholder/eurosport_logo_1x1.png){kind=logo}
Updated 30/04/2022 at 21:34 GMT
Simona Halep said she "had the fire back" after beating Zhang Shuai in the first round and she showed she was at her very best again when she took on Paula Badosa on Saturday. Halep hit 21 winners, won 69 per cent of points on her first serve and won nine of the last 10 games against the world No.2 in her home tournament in their first meeting to produce a statement victory.
Simona Halep
Image credit: Getty Images
Simona Halep cruised into the last-16 of the Madrid Open after an emphatic 6-3 6-1 win over Spain's Paula Badosa.
In her first tournament since she started working with Serena Williams' coach Patrick Mouratoglou, Halep built on her opening round win against Zhang Shuai with a dominant performance against the tournament's No. 2 seed, wrapping up the victory in one hour and 16 minutes.
Halep, who has won two titles in Madrid, will play USA's Coco Gauff in the third round after the 18-year-old beat Kazakhstan's Yulia Putintseva 6-1 2-6 6-4 in a topsy-turvy match.
"I feel great, I felt I was playing some good tennis and I'm really happy about it," Halep said after her best ranking win on clay.
"She is very good at this moment. She is number two in the world so it's just confidence. She was playing great but I believed I had my chance so I gave everything I had.
"It's a pleasure and an honour to have Patrick in my box as a coach. We are working very hard on some things and as I see I am playing very well every match. I'm just focusing on getting better and getting stronger."
Halep got off to a fast start as she broke in the opening game on her first break point with a confident forehand winner.
Badosa battled hard in the fourth game with stronger groundstrokes and she was able to convert her third break point, when Halep fired long, to get back on serve.
Halep continued to dominate on her first serve, though, and went back a break in front to take a 4-3 lead before reeling off the next two games.
Momentum was firmly with the Romanian and she made easy work of the second set, breaking the Badosa serve in just the second game with a clever sliced drop shot on the backhand.
After Halep moved into a comfortable 3-0 lead Badosa requested a medical timeout due to a problem with her right shoulder.
When play resumed Halep wasted no time in securing a double break as Badosa made another unforced error to move the former world number one within two games of the second round, before comfortably winning two of the next three games.
- - -
Stream the 2022 French Open live and on-demand on discovery+
Scan me
Related Topics
Share this article
/images.sports.gracenote.com/images/lib/basic/geo/country/flag/large/2244.png)
/images.sports.gracenote.com/images/lib/basic/geo/country/flag/large/2203.png)