Halep fires Australian Open warning with Shenzhen title
PUNE: Gilles Simon has never beaten South Africa’s Kevin Anderson in three meetings on the ATP tour, though he had taken him to three sets on two of those occasions.
However, the 33-year-old from France used the big stage of an ATP 250 Series final to record his first win against Anderson on Saturday.
Simon negated Anderson’s booming service with superb returns for a 7-6(4), 6-2 win in the final of the Tata Open Maharashtra to clinch his maiden title in India.
This was his 13th ATP tour singles title and earned him 250 ranking points and a cheque of $89,435 while Anderson got 150 points and a cheque of $47,105 for his efforts.
Simon, who won his last ATP tour title at Marseille in 2015, was once ranked among top 10 and has slipped to 89 in rankings.
But on Saturday, the 6’0” Frenchman seemed to have launched his bid to climb back into the top echelons with a dominating performance against a player ranked 14th in the world.
FULL OF ENERGY
Simon uses his groundstrokes to great effect and showed a lot of energy for someone who has also played doubles in this tournament, reaching the final there too.
Anderson, who also reached the final in Abu Dhabi, served superbly but made a lot of unforced errors, despite coming back from a break down in the first set.
In the first set, Simon survived a few anxious moments in the fourth game that went to deuce five times. He saved two break points as both players
After losing three times to Kevin Anderson, Frenchman finally gets the better of his opponent to take his 13th win I have not beaten him in three matches so far and I don’t know how I did it today. It was a wellfought match
GILLES SIMON , Tata Open winner
SHENZHEN: World No 1 Simona Halep fired a warning to her Australian Open rivals on Saturday, beating Katerina Siniakova in three sets to win the Shenzhen Open. The Romanian saw off the reigning champion from the Czech Republic 6-1, 2-6, 6-0 in 72 roller-coaster minutes in rain-hit southern China.
The 26-year-old Halep is guaranteed top seeding for the Australian Open, the season’s first Grand Slam, which begins in Melbourne on January 15. This was her 16th WTA title but the first since reaching the top of the world rankings in October.
The match was delayed by five hours because of rain in Shenzhen and had to be moved indoors before play could begin.
“It’s been a great week for me as I’ve been playing very well. It was a difficult match and (Siniakova) played very well,” said Halep. “I was less nervous and just tried to enjoy the moment, even if we are playing indoors.
“It’s not easy but we did our job and I’m happy that I could win the first title of the year.”
Halep had earlier provided a heart-warming moment when she made use of the severe rain delay by exchanging a few shots with a young boy who had been plucked from the sodden crowd.
To applause and cheers, Halep shook the boy’s hand afterwards and planted a kiss on his cheek.
When the final against sixthseeded Siniakova finally got under way, Halep was not nearly so generous, powering through the first set in less than 30 min.
KYRGIOS TAKES TITLE
BRISBANE: Controversial Australian Nick Kyrgios produced two sets of superb tennis to see off top seed Grigor Dimitrov on Saturday and reach the final of the Brisbane International. Kyrgios came back from losing the first set to win 3-6, 6-1, 6-4 and set up a decider against American Ryan Harrison.
Harrison had earlier ended the fairytale run of 18-year-old wildcard Alex de Minaur 4-6, 7-6 (7/5), 6-4 in two hours and 37 minutes.
Kyrgios admitted after his quarter-final win over Alexandr Dolgopolov that he sometimes fought tooth and nail to gain early advantage.
The Frenchman was successful in grabbing the initiative three games later when he broke Anderson’s serve. The South African, the tallest finalist in a Grand Slam when he finished runners up at the 2017 US Open, had served well till that game. He had blasted six aces and had not looked troubled at all on his serve. But Simon used his superb backhand returns to create pressure and earned two break points. Though Anderson saved one, Simon wrapped up the break with a stunning backhand down the line winner.
However, his advantage stayed only for few minutes as his South African rival broke back to level scores. They both held serve as the set went into tie-breaker.
Anderson jumped to an early 3-1 lead before committing couple of unforced errors to lose advantage. Simon then produced three superb winners including a brilliant forehand crosscourt to win the tiebreaker 7-4.
Simon broke Anderson in the sixth game of the second set, though he had a chance to do it in the second game too. He broke him again in the eighth game as Anderson’s game fell apart.
“I have not beaten him in three matches so far and I don’t know how I did it today. It was a well-fought match,” Simon said. turns his talent on and off “like a tap”. And as he has done all week, he started slowly against defending champ Dimitrov, losing the first set to a single break of serve.
But he came out firing in the second set, breaking Dimitrov twice and taking just 30 minutes to level the match.
Kyrgios served superbly in the second and third sets, winning over 80 per cent of points on his first serve and facing just one break point. Dimitrov, on the other hand, has struggled with his serve all week and Kyrgios was able to take full advantage, with his returns keeping the Bulgarian under constant pressure.
SVITOLINA TRIUMPHS
BRISBANE: Ukraine’s Elina Svitolina laid down her marker as a serious contender for the Australian Open when she demolished Belarusian qualifier Aliaksandra Sasnovich 6-2, 6-1 in the Brisbane International final on Saturday.
Svitolina won five titles on the WTA Tour last year, more than any other woman. She ended the year ranked sixth in the world, but will climb two places when the new rankings are released on Monday and will go into the year’s first Grand Slam as the fourth seed. PUNE: For his maiden ATP Tour title in India, Gilles Simon could not have chosen a better occasion as the Tata Open Maharashtra is the first edition in Pune of the country’s only ATP 250 Series event that has moved here this year from Chennai.
And the singles champion, who defeated Kevin Anderson in straight sets, acknowledged that it was unique coincidence that he was quite old to have won the first edition of the event in Pune.
“I am 33 and a bit old to have won such a tournament. Normally whenever a tournament is organised for the first time, there are some problems but here there were no problems from the first day,” Simon said.
The Frenchman was elated with this win as he is trying to climb back in rankings from his present 89 and a title so early in the season bodes well for him. Controlling the game against Anderson is very difficult as he has a huge serve that helps him dictate pace but Simon was happy he could play his own game. “It is hard to be comfortable against him as he has this huge serve and is controlling the game (with it). But today I managed to stay calm and played my own game.”
Simon said he will use the confidence he gained in this event to do well this season. “I didn’t have a good year in 2017 and from here I will be going to Australia and hope to do well there too.”
GILLES SIMON WAS ELATED WITH THIS WIN AS HE IS TRYING TO CLIMB BACK IN RANKINGS FROM HIS PRESENT RANK
OF 89