WTA Finals: Simona Halep Pre-Tournament Interview
An interview with Simona Halep ahead of her participation in the BNP Paribas WTA Finals Singapore presented by SC Global.
An interview with Simona Halep ahead of her participation in the BNP Paribas WTA Finals Singapore presented by SC Global.
SINGAPORE – No.3 seed Simona Halep kicked off her season-ending campaign with a 6-2, 6-4 win over No.6 seed Madison Keys on Day 1 of the BNP Paribas WTA Finals Singapore presented by SC Global.
Read how the match unfolded in the WTA Insider Live Blog.
– Simona Halep relishes this match-up.
Halep moves to 1-0 in the Red Group after a remarkably clean performance against Keys, a player she knows how to beat. The two played three times this year, all in the second half of the season, and Halep won all three matches, two of which came on hard courts. There’s just something about Halep’s game that continues to puzzle Keys, who has yet to find the sweet spot between minimizing errors by not going for too much and being the first-strike aggressor.
“I think one of her strengths is making you feel like you have to go for more and taking the risk,” Keys said. “I think just going in and knowing she’s going to get the balls back but continuing to play my game is the big thing. I think sometimes she makes me uncomfortable and I back away from playing my game and start going for things in a way that I shouldn’t.”
On paper, Keys should be able to take advantage of Halep’s serve with her forehand return and open up the court with her heavy cross-court shots. But Halep always seems one step ahead of Keys. The Romanian, who is now 6-5 against Top 10 players this year, has a fairly simple game plan against the American: Keep the ball on Keys’ backhand, minimize errors, and, most importantly, run. Even in straight sets, these are physical matches for Halep, but she seems to have unshakable faith in her gameplan and she’s now 5-1 against Keys.
– Positivity the key for Halep.
After taking the first set in 27 minutes — with a big help from Keys, who hit 18 unforced errors in the set — Halep had looks to break early in the second set and did not capitalize. You could see her frustration begin to set in. The clouds began to gather in her head, but she snapped out of it after a great coaching timeout with Darren Cahill at 2-1.
Coach @darren_cahill talks to @simona_halep, encouraging her to keep her level, before closing with a “Sorry, Sorry!” #WTAFinals pic.twitter.com/fnjhI1GEvf
— WTA (@WTA) October 23, 2016
“First game of the second set I had two break points and I missed that forehand very easy,” Halep said. “Yeah, I was a little bit pissed. I called Darren at 2-1. He told me to calm down, so [that’s] everything that I did.
“Then I just stayed more focused. I felt that she’s coming back, she’s playing better and better, so I had to stay for every point there. With Madison it’s always important to play every point and win every point.”
Halep immediately broke in the next game and took control from there. Even after Keys broke back to level to 4-4, Halep again stayed positive and got the break with the shot of the match:
A sensational backhand pass from @Simona_Halep to now serve for the match! #WTAFinals pic.twitter.com/Na7q8vXvfF
— WTA (@WTA) October 23, 2016
– Never underestimate the nerves of a first-timer.
If you successfully qualify for the WTA Finals, chances are you’ve gone through a few years on tour, so going to a new tournament in a new place is a rare experience. For a debutante like Keys, her experience in her first WTA Finals was markedly foreign. And it showed.
“It was obviously a very new feeling for me,” Keys said. “Then once I got on the court I definitely felt the nerves of the occasion.
“Definitely doesn’t feel like any other tournament. I think it’s been a while since I’ve gone to a tournament and it’s all felt new and it was new nerves and new occasion. So that was kind of difficult to deal with. I think at the beginning of the second set I felt like I settled in a little better.”
– Keys will likely need to beat Kerber for a chance to qualify for the semifinals.
Keys finished the match with 41 errors to just 16 winners. In a very telling stat, she hit just one ace in the match. Her return let her down in a big way, as she struggled to put any pressure on Halep’s serve, earning just two break points in the match. The Keys return against the Halep serve should go the way of the American, but her execution tonight was poor.
“I think today a big thing was this court stays really low,” Keys said. “The ball doesn’t bounce up very high. I think for me I was definitely getting caught either too far behind the ball or kind of running into it. I wasn’t timing it super well.”
The loss means her next two matches against Kerber and Cibulkova are virtually must-win matches. While she’s 3-0 against Cibulkova, she’s 1-5 against the World No.1.
– Halep could be the favorite to qualify out of the Red Group.
In a group that includes No.1 Angelique Kerber, Dominika Cibulkova, and Keys, Halep sent a strong message to the field with her steady play tonight. In addition to her performance tonight, Halep already had the best combined record against the Red Group. Going into this match, Halep held a 10-7 head-to-head advantage in the Red Group compared to Kerber (8-13), Cibulkova (7-9) and Keys (5-9).
“It’s not about the pressure,” Halep said, when asked about the effect of getting a win in your first match of group play. “I think it’s about the confidence. [Winning] gives you confidence. If you win you are more positive. When you go to the second one you say that you feel the game. You feel the court. You feel great here. So I can play my best tennis and…give everything without thinking of the score.”
An interview with Madison Keys ahead of her participation in the BNP Paribas WTA Finals Singapore presented by SC Global.
SINGAPORE – On the first installment of My Performance at the BNP Paribas WTA Finals Singapore presented by SC Global, hear from the first winner of the night as Simona Halep breaks down her dominant straight-sets victory over Madison Keys.
The match was the fourth meeting of 2016 for Halep and Keys, so the Romanian knew just how to attack Keys’ weaknesses – she explains how she targeted the backhand and how she broke down her opponent’s powerful serve.
It wasn’t just Halep’s great strategy that gave her the win, though, as her return game was also on point throughout the match. Check out the video below to find out just how deadly she was on the return.
An interview with Dominika Cibulkova ahead of her participation in the BNP Paribas WTA Finals Singapore presented by SC Global.
SINGAPORE – How did Angelique Kerber come away the winner of the three-set epic against Dominika Cibulkova in her BNP Paribas WTA Finals Singapore presented by SC Global opener?
On this installment of My Performance, Kerber explains how keeping a positive mentality – and staying aggressive – helped power her to victory in the two-hour-and-seventeen-minute thriller.
Another key to Kerber’s victory: her composure during the big moments, as SAP revealed in this Stat Of The Day.
“Of course, it’s always great to be back in the place that you have a lot of good memories,” Radwanska told reporters during All-Access Hour on Saturday. “As you know, time flies, so I really feel like it was a week ago. It’s always great to come back, especially [as]I really hope that I can still play my best tennis here and try to do the same [as last year].”
While much of the focus on Radwanska’s recent surge has been on her success through Asia, her initial improvements began over the summer on North American hardcourts. She is 21-4 since the Olympic break, winning two titles at the Connecticut Open and Beijing. She comes into Singapore on an eight-match win streak.
.@ARadwanska came to @WTAFinalsSG early, feels the court's gotten faster through a week of practice, esp compared to last year. pic.twitter.com/7lEGgkXd3P
— WTA Insider (@WTA_insider) October 22, 2016
“I think I had really great couple of weeks in Asia, so I’m feeling good. I’m pretty confident,” she said. “I just hope I can keep it up and really play the same good tennis that I was playing especially in the China Open.
“There is always a little bit more pressure when you really have to defend a big title, a lot of points. But on the other hand, when you’re Top 5, Top 10, you’re pretty much defending every week, more or less. So just trying not to really think about it and of course just try to repeat what I did last year.”
Radwanska will begin her campaign on Monday when the White Group gets underway, but as of Saturday morning she did not know who she would be playing. Radwanska is set to play the No.8 qualifier, which will be either Johanna Konta or Svetlana Kuznetsova. The Russian can knock Konta out of the eighth qualifying spot if she wins the Kremlin Cup on Saturday. The uncertainty shouldn’t bother the Pole. Tennis players regularly get less than 24 hours’ notice of their opponent during regular tournament weeks.
In addition to either Konta or Kuznetsova, Radwanska will also face Roland Garros champion Garbiñe Muguruza and US Open finalist Karolina Pliskova in round-robin play.
“I think it’s always very interesting because pretty much every match is 50/50 and you’re really going to see good tennis,” Radwanska said.
And will there be any more trick shots on tap in Singapore for the WTA’s Hot Shots leader? Radwanska explained the technique behind her signature style.
“Well, I think sometimes when you have this half a second to think what you going to do with the shot, I think most of the players maybe will hit as strong as possible,” she said. “I’m the one maybe just to want to do something else, because I can’t really hit as strong as the others. So that’s why I was always trying to do something else. Just use my hands.”
SINGAPORE – The BNP Paribas WTA Finals Singapore presented by SC Global draw was completed on Friday night, with top seeds Angelique Kerber and defending champion Angieszka Radwanska headlining the Red and White round robin groups set to begin on Sunday.
Click here to check out the full Insider Draw Analysis.
Senior Writer Courtney Nguyen and WTA Web Editor David Kane reunite after an impressive Asian Swing to break down the two groups, and who has what it takes to pull off a surprise run to the semifinals in the latest WTA Insider Podcast:
Subscribe to the podcast on iTunes, Stitcher, TuneIn or on any podcast app of your choice to ensure you never miss an episode when they go live. Reviews are always helpful, so if you like what you’ve heard so far, leave us one. You can also get new episode alerts by following us on Twitter @WTA_Insider.
Follow @WTA_Insider