World News – AU – Halep turns the tide to destroy Swiatek’s hopes

Under a siege by Iga Swiatek, Simona Halep adapted, then thrived, wrestling control of her clash with the Polish star to move into the Australian Open quarter-finals

Halep’s 3-6 6-1 6-4 win takes her to the final eight for the fifth time at Melbourne Park, where she will meet Serena Williams

The win avenged Halep’s loss at Roland Garros last year against 19-year-old Swiatek, who won the event and became the sport’s newest Grand Slam champion

And Swiatek played at a similar level in the first set on Sunday night at the Rod Laver Arena, clocking her forehead with significantly more pace and spin than the Romanian – especially the one she beat for a cross-court winner to fall in love with the fifth game and take a 3-2 lead

Although Halep held in the following game, she struggled with the 15th Living seeds from the baseline

And that shook her; Two games later, she made four casual mistakes – the last two were unusually wild mistakes above the baseline – only to be broken in love

“I knew she was going to hit really hard and her topspin on the forehand is really hard to come back,” said Halep

“But after the first sentence I said I had to change something and I think I just took a step back and I was trying to roll the ball more and get her going because she was running out close proximity hits very strongly

“I hit too hard and too flat I think I moved her a little better and that’s why she started missing a little more

Halep intervened in the rallies and incessantly forced Swiatek to play one more ball He played with controlled aggression and reduced her casual number of mistakes from 10 in the opening movement to only three in the second

Swiatek, who made 11 unforced mistakes in the first set, finished the match with a whopping 40 – 19 of them in the last set alone

After winning just one game in the second verse, Swiatek’s frustration became increasingly evident as the match got into the last set and her game on the back seat left her

In the third game, she tried to mess things up and rush forward, but did so with the wrong shot Halep calmly threw a temporary shot at the line

Swiatek looked completely unimaginative, but fought admirably, briefly rediscovered her feeling on the forehand wing and beat two consecutive winners to break Halep and make it 2-2

It was a deficit she would not recover from despite forcing Halep to serve for the match after taking three balls out of the air so the winners could hold service in the penultimate game

Halep played the match without losing points and arranged a meeting with the “legend”

“I’ve got experience, I’ve got so many games against her. After tomorrow I’ll just try to enjoy myself on the pitch and do my best because you can only beat Serena if you do your best”

The last time they met, Halep did her best and beat the 23-time major champion 6-2 and 6-2 in just 56 minutes to win the 2019 Wimbledon final

Tennis Australia recognizes that the AO takes place in Aboriginal land and we thank the traditional owners, their ancestors and elders past, present and genesis, and all of the First Nations people

Simona Halep, Halep, Iga Swiatek, iga świątek, Halep-Tennis