Tennis Player Simona Halep an aggressive baseliner

 Simona Halep


Simona Halep (Romanian pronunciation: [siˈmona haˈlep]; born 27 September 1991) is a Romanian professional tennis player who is currently ranked world No. 2. Halep first broke into the world's top 50 at the end of 2012, the top 20 in August 2013, and then the top 10 in January 2014 (after reaching the Australian Open quarterfinal). She won her first 6 WTA titles in the same calendar year in 2013 (a feat that was last achieved by Steffi Graf in 1986 when she won her first 7), being named the WTA's Most Improved Player at its end, as well as being named ESPN Center Court's 2013 Most Improved Player. Halep reached the 2014 French Open final, her first Grand Slam final, where she played against Maria Sharapova, losing in three sets. She also reached the final of the WTA Finals the same year, but lost to Serena Williams.
 

Contents

  • 1 Career
    • 1.1 Early years
    • 1.2 2008–09: Junior slam title
    • 1.3 2010–12: Progress to Top 50
    • 1.4 2013: Breakthrough; 6 WTA Titles
    • 1.5 2014: Reaching Top 2, first Major final & WTA Finals debut
    • 1.6 2015: First WTA Premier Mandatory title, US Open semis
  • 2 Endorsements
  • 3 Coaches
  • 4 Playing style
  • 5 Grand Slam tournament finals
    • 5.1 Singles: 1 (0–1)
  • 6 Career statistics
    • 6.1 Grand Slam singles performance timeline
    • 6.2 Doubles performance timeline
    • 6.3 Mixed
  • 7 See also
  • 8 References
  • 9 External links

Endorsements

Simona Halep's current clothing sponsor is Adidas, having previously had her apparel supplied by Lacoste. She also signed a deal with Vodafone Romania for 3 years.

Coaches

She was coached from an early age by Ioan Stan, a local tennis coach in Constanța. In January 2014, Simona Halep hired Belgian coach Wim Fissette, former coach of Kim Clijsters and Sabine Lisicki. At the end of the year, she chose to split with him and hired Romanian coach Victor Ioniță, with Thomas Högstedt serving as a coaching consultant for the first three tournaments of the year. She is managed by Virginia Ruzici. Her fitness coach is Teo Cercel. In the past, Halep has been coached by Adrian Marcu Andrei Mlendea and Firicel Tomai.

Playing style

Simona Halep has self-described her playing style as being "an aggressive baseliner"  and "she models her game on Justine Henin". Henin herself said of Halep, "She has an intelligent game. There is a little something that reminds me of myself... it is offensive and aggressive." In 2010, before her breakthrough, New York Times columnist Michael Kimmelman described her as "a scrappy player from Romania, short but with potent ground strokes and a scrambler's talent." By 2014, Louisa Thomas of Grantland was writing with admiration that "it turns out that [Simona] is astonishingly fast. She started to think ahead during points [...] she has uncanny anticipation. She became even faster [...] her strokes became more simple: compact, beautiful, unreadable. [...] she learned to disrupt the opposition’s rhythm and disguise her own. At her best, she does not play in patterns. She hits with surprising power. She covers the whole court. She hits balls with heavy power without making a sound. [...] Like Djokovic she has a talent for hitting winners from defensive positions. She is a defensive aggressor, an aggressive defender. She is becoming unclassifiable."  After Halep finished runner-up in her first Grand Slam final against powerful hitter Maria Sharapova in Roland Garros in 2014, Eleanor Crooks of The Independent wrote that Halep "has a lovely fluidity of movement and superb balance that enables her to comfortably trade with more powerful players" Michael Beattie of Wimbledon.org also noticed that [Halep] "is free of the shrieks, tics and fist-pumps of her contemporaries." 
In terms of tennis strategy Halep is an aggressive counterpuncher. Her very fit body and athleticism provide her with very good all-court movement and she tends to make few errors; she also uses this agility to reach the ball earlier because of her wide back swings and sliding. At the same time she likes to control the rally and can hit very effective cross-court and down-the-line flat shots, generally producing winners.

 

Grand Slam tournament finals

 

Singles: 1 (0–1)

Outcome Year Championship Surface Opponent Score
Runner-up 2014 French Open Clay Russia Maria Sharapova 4–6, 7–6(7–5), 4–6

 

Career statistics

Main article: Simona Halep career statistics
Key
W  F  SF QF R# RR LQ (Q#) A P Z# PO SF-B F-S G NMS NH

Won tournament; or reached Final; Semifinal; Quarter-final; Round 4, 3, 2, 1; competed at a Round Robin stage; lost in Qualification Round; absent from tournament event; played in a Davis Cup - / Fed Cup Zonal Group (with its number indication) or Play-off; won a bronze, silver (F or S) or gold medal at the Olympics; a downgraded Masters Series/1000 tournament (Not a Masters Series); or a tournament that was Not Held in a given year.
To avoid confusion and double counting, these charts are updated either at the conclusion of a tournament, or when the player's participation in the tournament has ended.

 

Grand Slam singles performance timeline

Tournament 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 SR W–L Win %
Grand Slam Tournaments
Australian Open Q1 3R 1R 1R QF QF 0 / 5 10–5 66.67%
French Open 1R 2R 1R 1R F 2R 0 / 6 8–6 57.14%
Wimbledon Q1 2R 1R 2R SF 1R 0 / 5 7–5 58.33%
US Open 1R 2R 2R 4R 3R SF 0 / 5 7–5 58.33%
Win–Loss 0–2 5–4 1–4 4–4 17–4 10–4 0 / 21 32–21 60.38%

Doubles performance timeline

Tournament 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 SR W–L Win %
Grand Slam Tournaments
Australian Open 1R 1R 1R 1R A 0 / 4 0–4 0%
French Open 1R 2R 1R A A 0 / 3 1–2 33.33%
Wimbledon 1R 1R 1R A 1R 0 / 4 0–4 0%
US Open 2R 1R 1R A A 0 / 3 1–3 25%
Win–Loss 1–4 1–3 0–4 0–1 0–1 0 / 14 2–13 13.33%

Mixed

Tournament 2015 SR W–L Win%
Australian Open A 0 / 0 0–0 0%
French Open A 0 / 0 0–0 0%
Wimbledon A 0 / 0 0–0 0%
US Open QF 0 / 1 2−0 100%
Win–Loss 2–0 0 / 1 2−0 100%
 

See also

  • List of Grand Slam Girls' Singles champions
  • List of French Open champions
  • List of Romanians

 External links

  • Simona Halep at the Women's Tennis Association
  • Simona Halep at the International Tennis Federation
  • Simona Halep at the Fed Cup
 
Awards
Preceded by
Italy Sara Errani
WTA Most Improved Player
2013
Succeeded by
Canada Eugenie Bouchard
Awards
Preceded by
N/A
ESPN Center Court's Most Improved Player
2013
Succeeded by
Incumbent

Women's Tennis Association: Top European female singles tennis players as of 14 September 2015

Women's Tennis Association: Romania Top Romanian female doubles tennis players as of 12 October 2015


















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