The Achilles injury which kept Halep from participating in any grass court warm-up tournaments has hardly been a problem for her at Wimbledon. The World No. 5 has been absolutely dominant through three rounds. She swept past Anna Schmiedlova (6-4, 6-1) and Francesca Schiavone (6-1, 6-1) before disposing of No. 26-seed Kiki Bertens (6-4, 6-3).
The Romanian is renowned for her excellent return game. She entered Wimbledon ranked No. 5 in return points won percentage and No. 8 in return games percentage. The numbers she’s been putting up in Wimbledon have been especially amazing. She’s converted 16 of 22 break points (72 percent) and has won 92 of 163 return points (56 percent).
Halep has struggled at Wimbledon in her career, crashing out at either the first or second round in four of her five appearances. However, she did reach the semifinals back in 2014.
Despite coming off a morale-boosting tournament win at Birmingham, Keys hasn’t had the smoothest of rides thus far at Wimbledon. She’s labored through back-to-back three-set matches against Kirsten Flipkens (6-4, 4-3, 6-3) and Alize Cornet (6-4, 5-7, 6-2).
To Keys’ credit, though, she’s bounced back well despite dropping consecutive second sets. She used her tremendous power strokes to fire 89 winners over the past two matches.
Few players on Tour can match Keys’ power, and she will have the advantage in that department against Halep. She’s also the much more accomplished grass court player than Halep. Both of her career singles titles have come on grass, and she reached the quarterfinal of Wimbledon last year.
Keys has also managed to raise her game against top competition this year. Three of her seven career wins over top 10-ranked opponents have come in 2016 (Roberta Vinci, Petra Kvitova and Garbine Muguruza).
Writer’s Prediction: Halep (+110) gets past the powerful American and moves on to the quarterfinals.
