WTA roundup: Elise Mertens upsets Simona Halep in Madrid
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[May 05, 2021]
No. 13 seed Elise Mertens
rallied from a break down in each of the final two sets to eliminate
No. 3 seed Simona Halep 4-6, 7-5, 7-5 and advance to the
quarterfinals of the Mutua Madrid Open on Tuesday.
Mertens, of Belgium, needed two hours and 34 minutes to defeat the
Romanian on the clay courts of Spain. It was Mertens' second win in
six attempts against Halep and her first on clay.
It was the sixth win for Mertens over an opponent ranked in the top
five. Halep, a two-time Grand Slam champion, is ranked No. 3 in the
world.
But it wasn't easy as Mertens had to climb back from a 3-1 deficit
in both the second and third sets.
"I want to be on court as long as possible, especially after losing
the first set," Mertens said. "I didn't think too much about the
score, I was just thinking about the way I should play to improve
myself."
Halep had her chances to put away Mertens, but 48 unforced errors
contributed to her defeat.
"She played really well, and she definitely deserved to win because
she was stronger in the end," Halep said of Mertens. "I cannot say I
played bad, but I did some mistakes, important mistakes. Sometimes
it's just a little bit and the match is going away."
In the quarterfinals, Mertens will meet her doubles partner, Aryna
Sabalenka of Belarus, who needed just 52 minutes to defeat American
Jessica Pegula 6-1, 6-2. It will be the first quarterfinals
appearance in Madrid for both Mertens and Sabalenka.
Sabalenka, the No. 5 seed, had just 13 unforced errors and faced
only one break point against Pegula.
In other action, a pair of seeded players were eliminated by two
unseeded Russians, Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova and Karolina Muchova, in
three-set clashes.
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Pavlyuchenkova defeated American
Jennifer Brady, the No. 11 seed. 7-5, 6-7 (8), 6-3. Muchova ousted
Maria Sakkari of Greece, the No. 16 seed, 6-0, 6-7 (9), 7-5.
Pavlyuchenkova and Muchova will meet Wednesday in another
quarterfinal.
L'Open 35 de Saint-Malo
Second-seeded Rebecca Peterson of Sweden was pushed to the limits by
Xiyu Wang of China before winning 4-6, 6-4, 7-5 in a second-round
match at Saint-Malo, France.
Wang hit five aces and converted six break opportunities but she
couldn't close out in the third set as Peterson broke her serve four
times.
Other winners were No. 4 seed Tamara Zidansek of Slovenia, No. 6
Arantxa Rus of the Netherlands and No. 7 Nina Stojanovic of Serbia.
Viktoriya Tomova of Bulgaria upset American Christina McHale, the
No. 8 seed.
(Field Level Media)
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