No.1 seed Simona Halep wins 17th straight match in dominant French Open victory

No.1 seed Simona Halep won her 17th straight tennis match to advance to the fourth round of the French Open.

The Romanian beat No. 25 seed Amanda Anisimova 6-0, 6-1 in the third round at Roland Garros to extend her undefeated run, which stretches back to January’s Australian Open semifinals and includes three WTA titles in Dubai, Prague and Rome.

It took 2018 champion Halep just 54 minutes to breeze past the 19-year-old in Paris, reenacting some sort of revenge on Anisimova for ruining her title defense in last year’s quarterfinals.

“I took the game in my hands,” Halep said afterwards. “Last year, I was very far from the court, and I played fairly short so [Anisimova] could play her game.

“When she has time and she has the ball in the right position, she is very, very dangerous and she plays great. So today I think I did a great job changing a little bit the tactic.”

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Halep returns the ball to Anisimova during their third round match at the French Open.

After saving five break points in the second game of the encounter match, Halep didn’t face another one all game and hit just seven unforced errors in the dominant victory.

But after the victory, Halep was full of praise for her opponent, saying she has a bright future ahead of her.

“She’s very young, so she has so many years ahead,” she said. “She’s a great player, and she will be in the top very soon.”

With reigning champion Ashleigh Barty and US Open winner Naomi Osaka not traveling to France due to coronavirus fears and injuries respectively, Halep is seen as the favorite to lift her second French Open title.

She will face Poland’s Iga Swiatek in the round of 16. The pair faced off in the same stage last year, with Halep winning comfortably 6-1, 6-0.

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Halep celebrates after winning a point against Anisimova.

The favorite advances

Rafael Nadal’s march towards tying the record for grand slam singles titles with Roger Federer continues. Federer won 20 such titles, and Nadal is on pace to equal him. Nadal’s dominance of clay court tennis also persists.

The 12-time French Open winner beat the Italian Stefano Travaglia 6-1, 6-4, 6-0 in just an hour and 35 minutes to advance to the last 16 of the tournament.

Nadal improves to 44-0 in the opening three rounds at Roland Garros with his 96th win in 98 contests.

“We are in a very strange situation after a lot of months without playing much tennis, especially for me [given that] I didn’t playing in America,” said Nadal. “So I don’t know if it is a positive thing or a negative thing [to win quickly]. I take it [as] a positive thing because I am playing quite well to win against a player like Stefano today.”

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Nadal celebrates after winning a point during his match against Travaglia.

The Spaniard hit 28 winners and just 13 errors as he cruised to victory and into the next round in France.

The No.2 seed will face 20-year-old American Sebastian Korda next after he beat Pedro Martinez on Friday.