CoCo stuns Halep American sends World No.1 packing at Stuttgart
Stuttgart (Germany), April 28: CoCo Vandeweghe knocked world number one Simona Halep out of the Stuttgart Grand Prix on Friday with a commanding 6-4, 61 win but admitted she wasn’t even aware of the score for large parts of the match.
The Californian’s 74minute demolition of the Romanian top seed follows Maria Sharapova’s loss in the first round and the injury retirements of second seed Garbine Muguruza and German crowd favourite Angelique Kerber on Thursday in the second round.
Vandeweghe, ranked number 16, admits that this is her least-favourite surface, but she has still reached the first clay semifinal of her WTA career.
She will on Saturday face French sixth seed Carolina Garcia, who constructed a third straight fightback over third-seeded Elina Svitolina 6-7 (4/7), 6-4, 6-2.
“At one point in the first set, I wasn’t even sure of the score,” Vandeweghe said. “Maybe that’s the secret.”
The American held her nerve to break early in the second set and added an insurance break for a 5-1 lead and closed out the upset on her second match point a game later when Halep went long with a return.
Halep lost to an American for the first time since the 2017 Australian Open when she was stunned by Shelby Rogers in the first round.
“She served well and it was tough to break her. I lost the serve in the first set and then I went a bit down,” Halep said.