I’m writing over at Women’s Tennis Blog for the next four days. I’ve just posted my review of Tuesday, which you can read HERE. Don’t worry, i’ll still be posting my daily previews here at mootennis.com. I’m gutted right now for two reasons… 1) To have missed the first match of today, which saw Wozniacki defeat Sharapova in a three hour plus epic and 2) Petra lost. Full credit though to Radwanska who played a great match. This now means that Petra will play Maria on Thursday with both battling to stay in the tournament…
Serena Williams and Simona Halep will square off in a much anticipated match-up on Wednesday in Singapore. The pair haven’t played each other since Halep became a top ten player and a relevant threat on the WTA tour. Halep was sported strapping on her left thigh and didn’t move particularly well in her first match, but she was solid enough to dispatch Eugenie Bouchard in straight sets, 6-2 6-3. Producing 11 winners to 11 unforced errors, Halep benefitted from a large unforced error count by her Canadian opponent. Adam Wells wrote an excellent recap for this match on Moo’s Tennis Blog, which can be read HERE.
Question marks surrounded Serena with her participation in Singapore, but she swatted away any concerns with an excellent performance to defeat Ana Ivanovic, 6-4 6-4. Ivanovic did well to keep this so close, but was unable to match Serena’s intensity, who broke serve at the end of each set. Serena was aggressive and particularly vocal, screaming “come on” after many of the points. She even admitted that she had lost her voice in her post-match interview because of all the shouting!
Serena and Simona have played each other three times on the WTA tour with Serena winning all three matches. Halep won a set off the world number one at Wimbledon although that came very soon after Serena made her comeback to the tour in 2011. In 2013, Serena defeated Simona in Rome (6-3 6-0) and Cincy (6-0 6-4). This will be a really tough match for Simona against what appears to be an in-form and highly motivated Serena. Halep will need to be dynamic and take chances to have any success against Serena. If the world number one plays to a similar level that she did in her first match, this will probably be over in two sets.
Prediction: S.Williams d. Halep in 2 sets
Poll result from day 2: 33% correctly predicted that Wozniacki would beat Sharapova in the first match from the white group.
Moo's Tennis Blog 
Last time they played Serena bageled Halep in 16 minutes and I thought Simona looked in better form there and she does now.
But I’m sure the Romanian has some tricks up her sleeve and I think it could potentially be a tight encounter.
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Serena in 2013 was much better than she has been this year. I think Simona (still very inexperienced in matches against Top 10 players at that point) was just over-awed by Serena in that 1st set in Cincy 2013, but made a much better match of it in the 2nd. However, Serena has lost SOME of that aura of invincibility that she had last year. That could be a factor in this match.
There were encouraging signs in Simona’s match against Bouchard that she is finding some decent form again. Also, the court seems to be playing quite slow which suits the counter-punchers more than the big-hitters.
So, I’m confident that Simona can make it a closer match this time. Haide Simona!
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PS I disagree with Moo (or his stand-in reporter) that Serena was excellent in her first match here. She really wasn’t in my opinion. Her serving saved her a lot but her ground game wasn’t great.
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2013 Serena was a boss, but Cincinatti was her weakest tournament of last year by FAR, in my opinion. It’s the same event that she lost a set to a teenage Bouchard and lost the final to an erratic Azarenka.
The only big difference I think here will be that Halep has beefed up quite a lot and should be able to handle Williams power a little better.
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I disagree that you disagree that Serena wasn’t in great form against Ivanovic, who, aside from poor serving, was playing an outstanding match with amazing gets and incredible striking.
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look what just happened…lol
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aaaaand Halep won…..good job Simona! way to go!
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I’m stunned by how poorly Serena performed today! It didn’t look as though there was anything bothering her physically but she just couldn’t seem to get past that net. I’m shocked there aren’t gaping tears in it based on how many times she hit it. Even in the second set where it got closer it wasn’t like she’d started making her shots, she’d just stopped attempting to attack and begun playing a decent defensive tennis game instead…
There goes my hope for Serena and Ana both making the semi finals!
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What should really stun you is Simona’s performance rather than Serena’s lack of it. I am also stunned how much this blog sometimes focuses on underperformers. Simona is underrated and a perfect example of that is the report of her match against Bouchard, which unfairly focused almost entirely on the latter. It is a blog after all (one of the best tennis blogs on the web) and everyone is free to express his/her opinion, but I do expect more objectivity in a match report.
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I think Simona was pretty perfect and even Serena acknowledged this… but she didn’t HAVE to do anything extraordinary, did she?
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As the author of said match report and can sincerely say it approached with absolutely no subjectivity whatsoever. The stand out aspect of the match was Bouchards nervous and misfiring performance, and so I naturally used that as the focal point of the recap. Halep played a steady, decent game, but, bar the odd super shot, it was not remarkable in any way, and I prefer to channel a match report through a point of interest. I find it makes it more interesting!
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A few autocorrect issues in that opening sentence, apologies!
I would also say to Greg that I never said Williams was excellent against Ivanocic. I said she had the answers to what Ivanovic was doing. Which was making too many mistakes on serve for the most part! Serena was very solid though, especially behind serve, and I thought she played a better first match than Halep, who was also solid (though a little nervy at times) but had the benefit of playing a completely overawed and out of sorts opponent. Ivanovic put in a much better performance against Serena than Bouchard did against Simona and I was stunned to come home and see the Simona Serena score today. Delighted too I should add!
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I hope Ana sorts this serve out and brings it against Simona… I just don’t understand why it’s SO bad when the ball toss hasn’t been too problematic of late. She’s actually served really well at the tournaments she’s made deep runs in.
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I can tell you why Serena played not too good. She was surprized by the opponent’s game. Her playing plan was wrong. So she try to adjust but Simona was surprizing again. She served well, returned well and made just few mistakes. Serena panics and made more and more mistakes. And before Serena regain her serve and FH the game was over.
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That doesn’t explain seven double faults in a set and possibly the worst winner to error ratio that she has ever had…
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Wow, I expected a competitive performance by Simona but didn’t dare dream of such a comfortable win! Of course, Serena was far from her best but Simona did a great job, especially in the 2nd set, of making Serena run and putting her under pressure. Hopefully, this win is the spur to really boost Simona’s confidence that she can compete regularly with the super-elite (Serena & Maria at the moment; Simona already has a 2-0 record vs Petra) and go to the next level.
Simona seems so poised and controlled this week. Very impressed that she rode out the pressure Serena applied at the start of the 2nd set and then pushed the match home with conviction.
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