2-time Grand Slam champion Halep crashes out against no. 124 Snigur at US Open
WTA
Simona Halep was on the tennis court for the biggest upset of the opening day at the 2022 US Open, but unfortunately for her, she was the upset player.
The former WTA World No. 1 player received a relatively favorable draw. In the first round, she was drawn against one of the qualifiers. That qualifier ended up being the World No. 124 player, Daria Snigur.
The Ukrainian doesn't have a lot of experience with competing on the biggest stage, so Halep had a clear advantage in this match. On top of that, she won the Canadian Open in Toronto only a few weeks ago, so she came to New York in good form.
The experienced Romanian started the match with a lot of nerves. She was missing a lot and soon found herself 0-3 down. Her opponent broke her serve twice in the first three games, and Halep had plenty of work if she wanted to win the opening set of the match.
She managed to break back once, decreasing her deficit to 1-3. However, Snigur immediately broke back and held her serve for the remainder of the set to win it 6-2.
The alarm bells were ringing, but the Romanian player quickly silenced them. In the second set, Halep showed why she's a two-time Grand Slam champion when she dominated the set by winning 24 out of 30 rallies played to win the set 6-0.
It was an absolutely dominant display from Halep, and it seemed that she had the match under control again. Yet, she had a slow start also in the third set when she got broken right away and her opponent added another break in the fifth game to lead 5-2.
For a second, it seemed that Halep would be able to fight back, but she couldn't add another break after making it 4-5 in the third set and eventually lost the match 2-6, 6-0, 4-6.
