Fresh off a convincing 6-4, 6-1 victory in the second round of the Cincinnati Masters over Taylor Townsend, Simona Halep remains as imposing as she’s been this entire season.
The standout Romanian has overcome two crushing defeats at Wimbledon and Roland Garros by staying consistently strong in basically every tournament she’s partaken in since late March. In the nine tournaments that began with the Miami Open, Halep has made it all the way to the quarterfinal round on all nine occasions.
This year’s French Open finalist shouldn’t be fazed much by her next opponent at Cincy in Anastasija Sevastova. Halep has a three-match win streak going against Sevastova – all in straight-sets fashion. In fact, she dropped just a total of nine games across those three meetings, which includes a perfect 6-0, 6-0 rout at Bucharest last year.
With the superb 6-2, 7-5 victory over Roberta Vinci, World No. 26 Anastasija Sevastova is off to a promising start in her on-going quest for that elusive maiden WTA Tour title.
Sevastova’s shown glimpses of excellence this 2017, most notably her performance in June at Mallorca, wherein she made the final round of the tournament before coming up short against Julia Goerges in three sets. However, that Spanish event was held on grass, and the current tournament in Cincy is being played on hard courts, wherein she’s gone a subpar 10-10 this season. What’s worse is that she suffered first-round exits in half of those 10 tourneys.
Halep has simply been dominant against Sevastova of late, but the 27-year-old Latvian actually has three wins in seven lifetime meetings versus the fifth-best female tennis player in the world. On the other hand, her last victory over Halep dates all the way back to 2011, and one of her three wins was due to the Romanian having to retire because of an injury back in 2010.
Writer’s Prediction
Halep (-380) cruises past Sevastova in straight sets.
