WTA Madrid: Simona Halep loses against Elise Mertens, Aryna Sabalenka continues to mercilessly
Simona Halep failed in the round of 16 at the WTA 1000 tournament in Madrid to Elise Mertens. The Belgian now meets Aryna Sabalenka , who gave Jessica Pegula no chance.
by Nikolaus Fink
last edit: May 04, 2021, 04:49 pm
Next disappointment for Simona Halep : After the Romanian had surprisingly failed to Aryna Sabalenka in the semifinals of the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix in Stuttgart, she lost an even earlier defeat at the WTA 1000 tournament in Madrid. Elise Mertens, who was third in the world rankings, had to admit defeat 6: 4, 5: 7 and 5: 7.
Everything had looked so good for Halep at first: The 29-year-old was already leading the Estadio Manolo Santana with a set and break advantage before her Belgian opponent made her comeback in round two. In the third section, the two-time Grand Slam winner was twice ahead with a break, but Mertens still made the last point.
While Halep and Mertens dueled each other for 2:30 hours on the largest court in the complex, Aryna Sabalenka made short work of the Arantxa Sanchez Stadium. The 22-year-old only needed 52 minutes to beat Jessica Pegula 6-1 and 6-2. Sabalenka, who now meets her good friend and doubles partner Mertens in the quarter-finals, has only played twelve games in three matches in the Spanish capital so far.
Jennifer Brady and Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova and Maria Sakkari and Karolina Muchova play the last two quarterfinal tickets. Ashleigh Barty, Petra Kvitova, Paula Badosa and Belinda Bencic had already prevailed in their round of 16 games on Monday .
Here the single tableau in Madrid
madridmap