Halep comes back from brink to win
PARIS — Trailing by a set and two breaks in the French Open quarterfinals, just one game from defeat, Simona Halep was not exactly full of positive thoughts during a changeover before her opponent tried to serve out the victory.
“I said that the match is lost. … That’s it. It’s over,” Halep recalled. “And then I started to feel more relaxed, maybe because I thought it’s finished.”
Well, it worked. The No. 3-seeded Halep came all the way back to beat No. 5 Elina Svitolina 3-6, 7-6 (6), 6-0 on Wednesday, saving a match point en route to reaching the semifinals at Roland Garros for the second time.
Halep, the 2014 runner-up, was down 5-1 in the second set, then was a point from losing while down 6-5 in the tiebreaker but came up with a backhand winner down the line to extend the match. She didn’t even know how dire things were at that moment. Only later, while checking Twitter, did Halep find out what the score was.
“I was like, ‘(It) was match point for her?’” Halep said. “I didn’t realize during the match.” No idea?
“Yeah,” Halep confirmed. “Was better, actually.”
Today she’ll face No. 2 Karolina Pliskova, a 7-6 (3), 6-4 winner over No. 28 Carolina Garcia.
The No. 1 ranking will hang in the balance: If Pliskova reaches the final, she will replace Angelique Kerber, a first-round loser
in Paris, atop the WTA list. If Halep can get past Pliskova and go on to win the title, she’ll be the new No. 1.
Asked whether she felt any additional pressure because of that possible prize, Pliskova answered with a smile.
“No, not really, because coming into this tournament, there were a few people who told me, ‘You have to be in the final to be No. 1,’” Pliskova said.
“I was like, ‘There is no chance I make (the) final here.’ And now it’s close, but it’s close and it’s far as well, because I’m playing against somebody who I would (call) one of the best girls on clay. It’s not like you’re going to get it for free, you know.”
Pliskova’s self-effacing comment about making it to the
final weekend at Roland Garros makes sense. After all, while she was the runner-up to Kerber at the U.S. Open after beating Serena Williams in the semifinals, Pliskova has never had any success to speak of on clay.
In five previous French Open appearances, she won a total of two matches.
“It’s probably tough to play my best tennis on this surface,” she said, noting her trouble with the footwork that can be tricky and the way clay dulls her dangerous serve.
But all of her big hitting — with a racket that has a white ribbon attached to the frame for good luck — gave Garcia fits: The last French player in the tournament made an eye-catching 31 unforced errors to Pliskova’s 13.