Former French Open finalist Simona Halep appears to be back in prime form leading up to this week’s Grand Slam tournament at Roland Garros.
The fourth-best female tennis player in the world has simply been phenomenal on clay, having just won her first title of the year at Madrid in the midst of a 11-match win streak on the turf. Although she lost to Elina Svitolina in the final round of the Italian Open, she still has an impressive record of 24-3 on clay dating back to the previous season to go with three titles.
Not only has Halep taken care of business on terre battue, she’s actually been fantastic in general this entire season. In five of eight tournaments this 2017, she’s advanced to the quarterfinal round of tournaments or better, currently sporting a terrific 18-6 record at that. As such, count on the 25-year-old Romanian to overwhelm her first-round opponent in Jana Cepelova this Tuesday.
World No. 89 Jana Cepelova will be making her first appearance in the French Open’s women’s singles draw since 2014. However, we shouldn’t expect the 23-year-old Slovak to give Halep any fits whatsoever this Tuesday.
Cepelova has only faced one top-10 opponent this season, losing to the aforementioned Svitolina in the semifinal round at Istanbul earlier this month. She’s suffered six first-round exits in 11 tournaments played this 2017, and has even failed to qualify for the Italian Open by losing her first match to 53rd-ranked Anett Kontaveit.
What Cepelova can be proud of is that she won one of her two head-to-head meetings against Halep, having pulled off a massive first-round upset last year at Wimbledon. On the other hand, she has yet to face the standout Romanian on clay, and her mere 8-9 record on the surface in the WTA Tour’s main draw over the past three seasons won’t cut it against a clay-court specialist that’s been on quite a tear this year.
Writer’s Prediction
Halep (-700) advances to the second round with a dominant straight-sets victory.
