Halep presents her candidacy

What Simona Halep showed in her unappealable victory against Paula Badosa in the second round (6-3 and 6-1) were not willful fires according to what was seen this Monday at the Mutua Madrid Open. The Romanian once again showed that she is in a great moment of form at 30 years old. She did it with a victory of merit (double 6-4 in 77 minutes) against the thriving Cori Gauff that puts her in the quarterfinals for the sixth time in a tournament in which she has played four finals and won two (2016 and 2017). On Wednesday, she will face the Tunisian Ons Jabeur, eighth favorite, who won 6-2, 3-6, 6-2 in 1h58 over the Swiss Belinda Bencic (11th).

Halep is fast and precise, she wins a lot of points with her serve and this time she was able to turn around a difficult situation in the second set, when she found herself a break down. She had already beaten the 18-year-old American and 16th in the ranking twice (at Wimbledon 2019 and Indian Wells 2022) and he did it on a third occasion in a WTA 1,000, the Spaniard, who is very good at it.

This is Simona’s 30th victory in the Spanish capital, one of her best mark in an event, the 31 she has at the Australian Open and also at Roland Garros. The new professional relationship with Patrick Moratoglou, former coach of Serena Williams, has been very good for her and she seems a firm candidate for the title, especially if you take into account that of the top ten seeded only her next rival, Jabeur, and Emma Raducanu (9th) remain.