Just kept fighting, says Halep
Despite all Simona Halep’s work preparing for the US Open, the second-ranked Romanian could not prevent her worst nightmare from coming true -- a first-round loss to Maria Sharapova. “I’m sad, of course, losing this match, but I think I give everything I had,” Halep said. “She was better. She was serving better. My serve was very bad today.”
Halep arrived at the US Open off a humbling 6-1, 6-0 loss to Garbine Muguruza at the Cincinnati final two weeks ago, her third loss in as many months with a chance to take the world number one ranking for the first time in her career.
“Was very tough. Was not like first-round match. But this is the draw. I cannot say anything else,” Halep said.
“It’s the luck. It was a tough one for first round, for sure. But still I think I played OK. She played really well. It was a good match. It was good for the fans.”
“I just stayed there. I didn’t think that I had lost the match. I just kept fighting,” Halep said.
“I started to play a little bit more relaxed after that score. Then I got the confidence back. I didn’t lose the confidence during the match because I felt I was very close, also in the first set.”
What Halep said she didn’t feel was any serve timing. “Maybe because was night. I didn’t practice night.” World number one Karolina Pliskova eased into the US Open second round with a no-nonsense 6-2, 6-1 victory over Poland’s Magda Linette as rain began to fall at Flushing Meadows on Tuesday.
The Czech, who will next face Paraguay’s Veronica Cepede Royg or American qualifier Nicole Gibbs, outclassed her 72nd-ranked opponent after the roof on Arthur Ashe was closed just before the second set.
Pliskova, who reached the final here last year, broke twice in the opening set to take a commanding lead with a fine backhand passing shot as Linette struggled on serve.
After fighting off six break points in the fifth game of the second set, Pliskova rolled on to prevail on her first match point with a second-serve ace.