For Simona Halep this is the third straight time she qualifies for the WTA Finals in Singapore. She first got the news in Wuhan after she beat Madison Keys to reach the semifinals. After the match, she said, “I knew before the match that if I win this match I will be qualified, so I’m really happy that I did it. It’s amazing to play three years in a row in Singapore, I hope this year I will do better than last year and just enjoy the time on the court and be happy. Because when I’m happy I play well!”
And Simona is right, she has all the reasons do a better job than last year; she now has the game to at least repeat her first appearance when she reached the final. After a rusty start to the year, things started to take a better turn when the clay season started. The 25-year-old has always stated that qualifying for Singapore is one of her main goals at the start of any season. Singapore is the place a player has to work an entire season for, only the first eight most consistent players of the season get to have the chance of showing what they can do at a tournament which stands out not only for its wonderful display of top players but for its unique format too. That is why any player present in Singapore has the chance of winning the so-called “fifth Grand Slam of the year,” but to do so, she has to beat the best players of the season.
Review of Halep’s year
As mentioned earlier, Halep’s season didn’t start the way she wanted to. An Achilles injury hampered her game in the first three months of the season. The same time span last year was when she achieved one of her best performances of her career. She lost in the first round at three tournaments including Australian Open (where she surprisingly lost to Shuai Zhang), but also in Dubai and Doha. Glimpses of her recovery were first seen at Indian Wells and Miami where she reached quarterfinals back-to-back. There were so little signs to announce the storm by which Simona took the Madrid Open. The amount of confidence in her shots, the hunger, and fight spirit it all came back together in one tournament. She won her first tournament of the season, her second biggest title of her career after she won Indian Wells.
That was the moment where she set her tennis free. Injury free and with great confidence, she was seen as a major favorite in Paris. But at Roland Garros, she fell to an inspired Sam Stosur in the fourth round, a match which was heavily affected by the rain. At Wimbledon, she picked up her rhythm again and reached the quarterfinals. Here she lost to Angelique Kerber, the current world number one and eventual finalist in London. Next, she played her home tournament in Bucharest, then Montreal and Cincinnati. By the time she reached the semifinals in Cincinnati, she was on a 13-match winning streak, but it was Kerber again who managed to beat her. At the end of the summer and continuing with the Asian swing, Simona’s season had experienced a constant improvement. Since Madrid, she has a 34-7 winning record, being nominated as the player of the year next to Angelique Kerber, Serena Williams, Garbiñe Muguruza and Karolina Pliskova.
History at the WTA Finals
Halep’s appearances at the WTA Finals in Singapore have been marked by two very different performances. Her first appearance, in 2014, was a fairytale, something even her biggest fans found hard to dream and even harder to believe. Not only she reached the semifinal, but the way she played and the victories she scored spoke for themselves. After winning fairly easy against Eugenie Bouchard, also a new star of the WTA, 6-2, 6-3, no one could have predicted what happened in the match against the then-reigning queen of the WTA, Serena Williams. Playing shocking aggressive tennis, force (not something you usually say about Simona in a match, but that was the impression she gave during what it might have been one of the best matches of her career) and most of all, no fear. It is true that Serena wasn't in her best shape, but that doesn’t take away Simona’s credit. She stayed fully concentrated and completely forgot she was playing against the best player in the world. She won the group, defeated Agnieszka Radwanska in the semifinals, but wasn’t able to perform the same level of tennis when she met again Serena Williams in the final.
In 2015 she began her campaign by defeating the US Open champion, Flavia Pennetta, being also the first player to bagel a Grand Slam winner in Singapore two years in a row. But from that moment on, everything went downhill for the Romanian. She was defeated by Maria Sharapova, whom she has never been able to beat in six meetings. Next, she had the mission of taking a set away from Radwanska to qualify next. But, even though she had the upper hand in the first set tiebreak, the Pole managed to sneak herself in front of Simona and won six consecutive points to take the first set to end Simona’s road in Singapore.
As for this year, Halep is the third favorite now that Serena Williams decided to withdraw and her hopes of doing well are backed up by her results in this summer and of course the good connection to the Singaporean atmosphere and 2014 memories. Before leaving for Singapore Halep had to say this: “I hope to do better than last year and be the same as it was in the first year, but it will be very difficult. Every player is at a high level, is the highest level of tennis. I feel OK, I feel ready, I hope to do a good job and give my best. All the players are very good, of course, if Serena is not there that means we got rid of a very good player, but it's still a very strong tournament and every match will be very difficult. It doesn’t matter whom I’m playing against. The opponent doesn’t matter, I have to win matches.”
Simona’s head-to-head records with the rest of the field
Simona Halep leads the head-to-head meetings against three out of her future opponents, having a tie against Agnieszka Radwanska. Halep leads 4-3 in what might be one of the toughest players in Singapore. But out of four meetings they had this year, Angelique Kerber has the upper hand. Kerber beat her quite easily in their rubber match in the Fed Cup tie 6-2, 6-2. Then, they met in the Wimbledon quarterfinals where Halep was more resilient, but yet again Kerber prevailed in two tight sets, 7-5, 7-6(2). In Montreal, Halep felt more confident on the hard court and fought her way to the final 6-0, 3-6, 6-2. Even so, in their last meeting Kerber was the more aggressive and won 6-3, 6-4 to reach the final in Cincinnati.
Since winning their first meeting in 2014, at Sydney, Madison Keys seems to have not been able to bring that level of tennis to bring down Simona’s defense. The leitmotif in all their meetings since then has been the consistency. Halep knows that when playing against Keys she has to wait for her opportunities and for Keys’ mistakes. A hard hitting game might get Keys most of her wins, but against the experienced Romanian that is not enough. In 2016 Halep beat her at Wimbledon 6-7(5), 6-4, 6-3 to reach the quarterfinals and in Montreal, Simona won her 14th title of her career with a 7-6(2), 6-3 win against the young American. In Wuhan, Simona prevailed again 6-4, 6-2 to reach the semifinals where she eventually lost to Petra Kvitova.
Speaking of another Czech player, Simona is also leading the head-to-head meetings against Karolina Pliskova. The Romanian won their both meetings in 2015, 6-4, 7-6(4) in Dubai’s final and 6-4, 6-4 at Indian Wells. At the beginning of the year, Halep kept her record clean and beat her 6-4, 7-5 in Sydney. But the Czech player recorded her first win in a very tough match in Fed Cup, when she led her team to the victory with a 6-7(4), 6-4, 6-2 win in front of the Romanian home crowd. But in Montreal, Simona went back on her usual move from defense to offensive to beat her 6-3, 6-3.
Against Dominika Cibulkova, Simona is being led 3-2. Dominica prevailed in their first meeting in 2011 and in 2012 Simona won on her beloved clay court, in Brussels. In 2013, Halep fell to Cibulkova at Indian Wells, and in 2014 Simona was unable to overpass the importance of reaching for the first time the quarterfinals at a Grand Slam and lost at the Australian Open 6-3, 6-0. Nevertheless, Cibulkova couldn’t do much in their last meeting, in the Madrid Open final. With one of her best performances of the season, Halep beat Cibulkova 6-2, 6-4.
Against Muguruza, out of their two meetings in WTA tournaments, the wins are divided 1-1. In 2014, at the Wuhan Open, Muguruza won 2-6, 6-2, 6-3. At Stuttgart, in 2015, Halep took revenge also for the loss she suffered in Fed Cup a few of weeks earlier and played her heart out to win 3-6, 6-1, 6-3.
The Radwanska-Halep encounters have always had a special meaning and a unique emotional charge, especially for the Romanian. After losing their first three meetings, Simona got her much-desired win at Rome, in 2013, 6-7(2), 6-1, 6-2. For Halep, that was the win which made her believe she can play a high level of tennis and that she can actually go higher in the rankings. They both share five wins against each other. Since Doha 2014, where Simona beat Aga in the semis 7-5, 6-2, the Romanian won 4 out of their last 6 meetings. Her two losses came in 2014, at Indian Wells, 6-3, 6-4, and the last one came last year at the WTA Finals 7-6(5), 6-1. In 2016 the two met in the quarterfinals at Cincinnati, and Halep won 7-5, 6-1.
As mentioned earlier, Serena’s withdrawal left one spot open and Johanna Konta is the favorite of taking that spot (unless Carla Suarez Navarro or Svetlana Kuznetsova win Moscow). Halep and Konta have only met once, last year in Wuhan. Halep is probably eager to erase one of the most terrible losses of her career. After leading 5-1 in the third set, Konta won the next six games and won 6-3, 3-6, 7-5.
Halep’s mission at the WTA Finals is not an impossible one. She has wins against almost all the other opponents (except Konta), and having a positive win-loss record against some of the other players will make her job easier, at least from the point of view of already having wins against them. Whether Simona will be able to put herself in a wining position or if she’ll be able to overcome her first year appearance performance, it is something we should get a close look at the WTA Finals in Singapore.