Halep eliminates Sharapova
BEIJING: Maria Sharapova was emphatically dumped out of the China Open in the third round yesterday by Simona Halep, going down 6-2, 6-2 to Romania’s world No.2.
The Russian, a former No.1 now languishing at 104 in the world rankings, is still searching for her first title since returning in April from a 15-month suspension for taking the banned substance meldonium.
Sharapova, 30, struggled all week with her serve and she made a nightmare start as she lost the opening game to love, before breaking Halep back.
Halep had never got the better of the five-time Grand Slam champion in seven previous attempts, but she began to take a grip on the match despite the crowd’s vocal backing for Sharapova.
Second seed Halep rammed home her superiority in the second set after again breaking Sharapova early.
Halep goes through to the quarter-finals where she will take on either 11th seed Agnieszka Radwanska or Daria Kasatkina, who were due to face off later yesterday.
With world No.1 Garbine Muguruza exiting in the first round with a virus, the 26-year-old Halep is now favourite in the Chinese capital.
Earlier, Nick Kyrgios said he wanted to make up for his notorious meltdown last year in Shanghai as he beat Mischa Zverev in the second round of the men’s event.
A year ago the supremely talented but combustible Kyrgios was suspended for his petulant behaviour at the Shanghai Masters, where he swore and argued with the crowd and appeared to give away points in caving in to the German.
The eighth seeded Kyrgios smashed his racquet on the floor in anger, bending the head in half, when he conceded the opening set yesterday.
That earned the world No.19 a warning from the umpire and raised the spectre of one year ago.
But the 22-year-old returned for the second set with renewed determination and errors began creeping into Zverev’s game.
Zverev, ranked 27 in the world and the older brother of rising star Alexander, surrendered his first service game of the second set and Kyrgios was never in trouble after that, surging into the next round 3-6, 6-2, 6-2.
Kyrgios said facing Zverev a year after Shanghai, and again in China, was the perfect opportunity to show how far he has come.
“Obviously didn’t have a great one last year, obviously got suspended after that,” he said.
“I just wanted to go out there today and kind of redeem myself a little bit from last year. I just wanted to prove to myself how much I have improved.”