Simona Halep overcame a topsy-turvy start to her match with Anna Karolina Schmiedlova in the first round of Wimbledon to eventually take control and cruise into the second round at the All-England Club with a 6-4, 6-1 victory. At times, the Romanian struggled with consistency, blowing a big lead in the first set, but her opponent had even more troubled and eventually the fifth seed found her groove to claim a routine victory.

Wild opener goes to Halep

Halep got off to the dream start, reaching double break point in the opening game of the match and converting her second opportunity for an immediate break lead. The pair would settle in and the next three games would go with serve before the Romanian made another move in the fifth game. Schmiedlova struggled to keep up with Halep in the rallies and found herself down double break point again. The former Wimbledon semifinalist would rip a backhand winner to grab the double break.

After scoring her second break, Halep slipped up, missing three straight forehands give Schmiedlova triple break point. The fifth seed saved the first with an ace but couldn’t handle another forehand to give one of the breaks back. Halep would push the Slovak to deuce in the following game bout could not reclaim the break. The errors continued to fly off of Halep’s racquet and she gave the other break back in the following game to level the set at 4-4. But the momentum would swing again as two double faults and an unforced error gave Halep another break. Serving out the set would prove to a major struggle as it took the Romanian four set points to close out the opener.

Halep cruises into round two

Halep waves to the crowd after winning her first round match. Photo: Julian Finney/Getty Images
Halep waves to the crowd after winning her first round match. Photo: Julian Finney/Getty Images

The second set started exactly how the opener had, with Halep going ahead 15-40 in the first game and converting his second break point for an early lead. Schmiedlova would have to save another break point in the third game to keep the deficit to just one break. The second continued to follow an identical script as the opening set as Halep would break again to move ahead 4-1.

The parallels finally stopped as this time the fifth seed did not let her foot off the gas. A string of errors from the Slovak allowed Halep to easily consolidate her double break and move to within a game of victory at 5-1. Serving to stay alive, Schmiedlova had no answer for the Romanian’s solid play, falling behind 0-40 and Halep made no mistake, converting her first match point to advance to the second round in only an hour and five minutes.

By the numbers

While Halep was solid on serve, she was dominant on her return, winning 59 percent of her first serve return points and 61 percent of her second serve return points. She broke serve six times, limiting her opponent to only two. Schmiedlova only had four winners in the match while giving away 24 unforced errors. Halep had 13 winners to 16 unforced errors. 

Halep awaits the winner between Anastasija Sevastova and Francesca Schiavone in the second round.

VAVEL Logo
About the author
Pete Borkowski
Tennis has always been my obsession. What better way to channel that obsession than writing about it? After 18 months of blogging with Sportsblog.com as the writer of A Fan Obsesseds blog, all the while completing my Bachelors in history and French, I joined VAVEL so that I can better share my love and knowledge of tennis with the world.