The 2021 Madrid Open semifinalist, Paula Badosa and 2-time champion from the Madrid Open, Simona Halep met already in the second round of the 2022 event.
Simona Halep is one of the greatest clay-court players on the WTA Tour, and with new coach, Patrick Mouratoglou, supporting her, the Romanian showed her high level at the 2022 Madrid Open once again. This time, she delivered a very dominant and fast victory against world number 2, Paula Badosa.
In the first round of the 2022 Madrid Open, Simona Halep played against Shuai Zhang who she comfortably defeated and was satisfied with her performance after the match when she said:
"I was thinking about stopping at one point. But now I'm starting to get it back, I have the fire back, and I love to be on court."
In her second round match against Paula Badosa, she started with a quick break in the first game, but then lost her advantage in the fourth and found herself 2-3 down. However, from that moment, Halep was dominant on the court as she has won almost all the remaining games in the match and marched towards 6-3, 6-1 victory in slightly more than an hour.
The Romanian was also dominant in all of the statistics when she hit two aces and no double faults. Halep was successful after 76% of rallies after her first service and fought off 6 out of 7 breakpoints that her opponent had. On the other hand, Badosa didn't enjoy the best match in Madrid as she also requested a medical timeout at one point in the match.
In the third round, Simona Halep will take on the winner of the match between Coco Gauff and Yulia Putintseva as she will be definitely a favourite if any of the mentioned players advances. On the clay in Madrid, Halep shows that she's back in her top form and ready to win another title.
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