Top seed Halep makes unwanted history with first-round defeat
The US Open’s spanking new Louis Armstrong Stadium had to wait less than 90 minutes for its first major upset. An unprecedented upset, in fact. The top women’s seed had never been eliminated in the first round of this tournament, but that was Simona Halep’s fate as she slumped to a 6-2, 6-4 defeat by Estonia’s Kaia Kanepi.
This was an old-school Halep performance, of the kind that we thought she had largely left behind. Always prone to playing safe, she let Kanepi hit almost every ball off the front foot. And her 33-year-old opponent – who is ranked 44 in the world but has stood as high as No15 – responded with relish.
Perhaps there might have been warning signs a week ago, when Halep pulled out of the New Haven Open, citing exhaustion and pain in her left leg.
In many cases, such decisions are simply precautionary, particularly when they come so close to a grand slam. But Halep neither moved as smoothly as normal nor was able to establish any attacking momentum.
Afterwards, she gave an unexpected explanation for her relative underperformance at the US Open, where her winning percentage of 64 is the lowest of the four majors. “Maybe the noise in the crowd,” she said. “The city is busy. So everything together. I’m a quiet person, so maybe I like the smaller places.”
It should be emphasised that Halep – a woman of impeccable sportsmanship – was not trying to make easy excuses. She also com- mended Kanepi’s “really strong” tennis and admitted that she finds first-round matches particularly stressful.
“Even when you are there in the top, you feel the same nerves. You are human. For me, it’s more difficult in the first rounds, because I’m more emotional. That’s why I need a good start.”
Kanepi is built like a weightlifter and powered her forehands through the court with such venom that they could have made a decent-sized dent in the backboard.
She said afterwards that she had felt pressure of her own, as she had 940 rankings points to defend from her run to the quarter-finals of last year’s US Open. But she also had a keen sense that Halep’s metronomic but sometimes underpowered game might suit her – “I have time to be aggressive.”
Unlike Halep, she clearly enjoys all that goes along with this tournament. “I have always loved being in New York,” she said. “I like the atmosphere. I like being here. I love the courts and the climate, and I think that the courts suit my game really well.”
Kanepi thus became the sixth woman in the open era to knock out a top seed in the opening round of a major.
Three of the previous instances came at Wimbledon – the result, perhaps, of that awkward adjustment from clay courts to grass – and two involved Martina Hingis. But then upsets are hardly the rarities they used to be, in the women’s game at least. At Wimbledon, not a single member of the top 10 seeds reached the quarter-finals.