Former world number 1 Simona Halep started her 2022 Madrid Open campaign successfully when she defeated Shuai Zhang in slightly more than an hour.
Simona Halep faced a difficult draw at the 2022 Madrid Open when the Romanian opened the tournament against world no. 40 Shuai Zhang, and in the second round, she will meet the winner of the match between second-seeded Paula Badosa or Veronika Kudermetova.
Despite having a tough draw, Halep showed in the past that she was capable of winning in Madrid when she won back-to-back titles in 2016 and 2017. And even though she admitted that she was close to retiring in 2022, she's back on the courts, and it seems that she's very strong again.
Halep swiftly started her first match in Madrid in 2022 when she opened up with a break, winning eight out of the first nine rallies. She continued the whole set in a similar trend when she converted broth breakpoint opportunities she had and was successful when facing breakpoint, which led to a quick 6-2 win in the opening set.
In the second set, Halep found herself on a losing end after two games as she got broken for the first time in the match. However, she quickly recovered and broke her opponent in her next two games on serve to grab a 4-2 lead.
She later added another break to end the match and win 6-2, 6-3 in 70 minutes and book a second-round spot at the 2022 Madrid Open. The Romanian will now face another difficult test in the second round of the WTA 1000 tournament.
In the second round, the former champion will take on either Veronika Kudermetova, or the second-seeded native player Paula Badosa. Should she make it to the third round, she can possibly take on the 14th-seeded Coco Gauff.
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