French Open: Finally “Fighter Girl” – The ultimate adulation on Simona Halep

Simona Halep was close to coming out of her fourth Grand Slam final as the second winner. But she turned the finale with courage, a new mental attitude and awareness about her fitness.

First of all, could Halep be blamed in her previous major finals? Hardly. At the French Open 2014 she lost to Maria Sharapova in three narrow sets, last year in Paris, after Halep’s 6-4, 3-0 lead, Jelena Ostapenko scored everything (Halep also became too defensive), at the Australian Open this year she was flat at the end – the after-effect of the semi-final drama against Angie Kerber.

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Many professionals flee after bitter defeats in platitudes. Halep did not – she often told how long it took her to cope with the Ostapenko defeat, she talked about her nightmares and about visiting a sports psychologist. Halep didn’t say that he had a great career without a major title. Her goal for 2018 was to win a Grand Slam tournament, she openly stated.

Had she possibly drawn from the Wawrinka school? After too many disappointments, the Swiss had the famous sentence of Nobel Prize winner Samuel Beckett tattooed on his arm: “Always tempted. Always failed. It doesn’t matter. Try it again. Fail again. Fail better.” After important victories, Wawrinka likes to point his index finger towards the head to support his newly learned attitude. Halep did the same after her victory over Kerber. She wanted to “fail better” in Paris.

She went into the match against Stephens as the top of the world rankings as the favourite, in addition with a 5:2 lead in direct comparison. But also with the knowledge that Stephens is a ripped-off finalist: the US Open winner was in a final six times in 2017, she won six times. And also in the Paris finale Stephens played fearlessly, whereas Halep started nervously.

It was a high-class final from the beginning: Stephens played without weakness, and Halep was trailing 3:6, 0:2 despite good tennis. Halep could have made it easy, defeat could have been explained by Stephen’s strong performance. If you are trailing against a strong opponent, you often have the attitude to stick to it and wait for a break-in. Halep kept up, but also changed her direction, played with more bows, took more risks at the right time. “And I stopped making mistakes – that’s what I did best over the two weeks,” she said.

Halep’s strength: She is physically perhaps the best in the world – and she knows it. Stephens, on the other hand, may be a great defensive artist and ball striker, but she is not well trained. Halep was also clear: “If it goes over the full distance, she will be fitter. Halep knew she could change her tactics, go more about the physical. And she did.

Halep shot the match with great tennis – and a great body language: She gave herself the fist, but remained calm. Even when she won important and spectacular rallies at the end of round two and in set three, she did not turn around, but stayed completely with herself.

The 5:1 in set three was about everything: serve for the match win, for the first Grand Slam title. And how did Halep play the last points? Continue offensively, without waiting for mistakes from Stephens. Halep wanted to win and made five first serves, including her first ace of the encounter. “At 5-0, I said to myself, “Now I have to take it and not wait for their mistakes.” This is how a champion finishes a match!

“When I came back, I thought, “Never mind, now I can relax.” Halep said this after the match and explained her increase from the second set. This train of thought is good: Halep could have sunk into self-pity, despair over Stephens’ strong appearance, fall into a negative spiral of thought. Halep freed himself in a positive way – with success. Today she was playful, physically AND mentally strong!

Defeats teach you – an old (and hackneyed) wisdom. Halep has learned “Last year I was too defensive, not this time,” she said. And: “Tonight I slept well, not at all last year before the final.” And again: “Last year I was leading with a set and a break and lost. In this one, I was one set and one break behind – and believed that I would win.”

“I dreamt of this moment when I started playing tennis,” Halep said at the press conference – a Grand Slam title, especially at the French Open was her childhood dream. Halep never gave up and finally reached him – and deserved it!

Halep has played many matches too fast in the past. After her 4:6, 0:6 quarter-final defeat of Ekaterina Makarova in Melbourne in 2015, she gave out the motto to want to become a “Fighter Girl” and not to miss anything. She didn’t keep her word, the unsuccessful speech of coach Darren Cahill in Miami last year became an Internet racer and Cahill briefly separated from his protégé. She did not always remember her promise to work harder on herself and her often negative attitude; in the 2017 Cincinnati Final against Garbine Muguruza, she drove the last four balls into the prairie in frustration. Nevertheless: The way is the goal – and Halep delivered her masterpiece on Saturday. She is now allowed to call herself “Fighter Girl”.