The experience of major events made the difference for Simona Halep, winner Sunday in Toronto of the 9th WTA 1000 of her career, by controlling the powerful Brazilian Beatriz Haddad Maia (6-3, 2-6, 6-3).
Two weeks before the US Open, where her best run ended in the semi-finals in 2015, the Romanian Simona Halep (15th in the world) confirms her good summer, marked by a semi-final at Wimbledon. And more generally his return to form, a year after leaving the Top 10 due to a series of shoulder and thigh injuries. Top 10 that the former world No.1 (in 2017), crowned at Roland-Garros (2018) and Wimbledon (2019), should return before Flushing Meadows, with this 24th title on the list.
Twice winner of the Canada Open, in 2016 and 2018, editions then played in Montreal, Halep had to her credit the force of habit for her 18th final of a WTA 1000, facing an opponent who was discovering this context. particular that no other Brazilian before her had known. There was nevertheless reason to be wary of the 24th in the world, whose warlike strength successively got the better of the Polish world No.1 Iga Swiatek in 8th, then the Swiss Belinda Bencic (12th) and finally the Czech Karolina Pliskova (14th).
The Muratoglou effect
For their fourth confrontation, the Romanian, leading until then two victories to one, started off on the piano, penalized by no less than 5 double faults on her first game of service and suffering attacks from the baseline of an opponent then by no means intimidated by the challenge. But after a little anger, she quickly pulled herself together. She reversed the situation by finding accuracy and varying the blows, so much so that she outsmarted Haddad Maia, to win six games in a row.
In the second set, the left-hander from Sao Paulo started again, seizing her opponent’s service twice, to escape 4-0. Redoubled aggressiveness in the exchanges, she pushed Halep to the fault, to logically equalize. Halep regained the upper hand in the third set by breaking from the start, but Haddad Maia was able to recover to 2-1 on his fourth opportunity, with a forehand that bit the line for a millimeter. A short respite for the Brazilian, again trapped on her commitment, the concrete defense of Halep then doing the rest.
This return to form, Halep attributed it in particular to the work carried out with his new coach, the Frenchman Patrick Muratoglou and to the invigorating context of the latter’s academy in Sophia Antipolis (Alpes-Maritimes).
«Human error»
“It was Patrick who gave me back this good energy. Not only that, but also the atmosphere of the Academy. Seeing all these young people fighting every day to achieve their dreams gave me a lot of energy. I feel like I can still do it. I feel it in me. That’s why I keep working hard every day.”, the 30-year-old explained this week. Energy, Beatriz Haddad Maia does not lack it. At 26, the future finally seems to belong to her, she who is experiencing an emergence as sudden as it is late on the circuit, since she has won the first three tournaments of her career this season, in Saint-Malo, Nottingham and Birmingham.
This first setback in an event of another size will reinforce his experience which only asks to grow, in the middle of a career long strewn with pitfalls, with serious injuries to a shoulder and vertebrae, and an anti-doping control positive for anabolics in 2019. She then served ten months of suspension, although her lawyers proved that it was a “human error” of the pharmacy that provided him with food supplements. She now has a bright future, with the possibility of doing even better, on a much larger stage, at Flushing Meadows, at the end of the month.
