Simona Halep beat Australian Open champion Angelique Kerber 6-0, 3-6, 6-2 on Saturday to advance to the Rogers Cup final for the second straight year. So I expect that I will not have a good rhythm because she can hit a victor and you don’t see the ball. She called the Bucharest event “a small tournament” that nonetheless showed she was playing strong tennis. As anyone knows, I can not hit stronger than her because she’s very strong and it’s impossible for my height and for my body. I tried just to put the ball away from her, just to make her run. There were some times when I maybe could have taken a step back and hit a safer ball.
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The first set featured eight breaks of serve before fifth seed Halep eventually breezed through the tiebreak against the 21-year-old American.
It was a match Keys would no doubt like to quickly forget as she finished with 45 unforced errors and had her serve broken five times, including four times in the opening set.
Picking up her third title of 2016 Halep said: “It’s been a great week”.
Halep outlasted 10th-seeded Keys in a messy first set and then dominated the second in a one-hour, 16-minute hardcourt match in warm, sunny weather. Halep appears to be back after some recent struggles early in the season and could find her way in the No. 2 spot again if she stays on this path. Halep has won 10 of her last 12 matches on hard court.
“I feel exhausted, I feel that I have no more power but it’s a nice feeling and I gave it everything to win this title”. “With all the Romanians, I felt like at home”. Many people were coming every day, not just today. It was an incredible atmosphere down there.
Halep, who was beaten by the heat and Belinda Bencic of Switzerland in the Rogers Cup final previous year in Toronto, earned $497,700 for her week’s work while Keys won $241,840. “I had, I can say, bad memories from a year ago that I had to finish the match and to stop it, so I am happy that I could win”. I think I played a pretty good tournament. I wish today went a little bit differently. “Sometimes it happens. Just take the positives from that and move on”.
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Halep later played in the doubles final, teaming with compatriot Monica Niculescu in a 6-3, 7-6 (5) loss to Russians Ekaterina Makarova and Elena Vesnina.
