Former world number 1, Simona Halep was cruising at the 2022 Madrid Open and it seemed that no one will stop the Romanian, however, she was stopped by Ons Jabeur in the quarterfinals.
With a new coach, Patrick Mouratoglou, and re-discovered love for tennis, Simona Halep was destroying one opponent after another at the 2022 Madrid Open. First, she defeated Shuai Zhang, then Paula Badosa and also Coco Gauff. In the quarterfinals, she faced Ons Jabeur who also showed solid performances in the Spanish capital.
Halep and Jabeur met three times before with the Romanian winning in their last two meetings and coming to the match with a 4-set winning streak. Former world number 1 was also the first one to break in the first set as she quickly got a 2-1 30-0 lead.
However, at that point Jabeur turned into the wall as all balls seemed to be coming to the other site of the net as she won 17 out of 18 rallies to gain a 5-2 lead. After another 2 games, Jabeur would win the first set 6-3 in 35 minutes.
In the whole second set, Halep didn't have a sinfle breakpoint and lost on 2 out of 3 occasions when she faced one what resulted in a swift 2-6 loss and departure from the 2022 Madrid Open.
Despite not ideal quarterfinal performance by the Romanian, she showed that she will be a contender for the 2022 Roland Garros. On the other hand, Ons Jabeur showed once again that she belongs to the Top 10 of the WTA Rankings as she will take on Ekaterina Alexandrova or Amanda Anisimova in the semifinals.
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