Wimbledon: Simona Halep – The number one flies under the radar

Simona Halep enters the Wimbledon tournament as the newly crowned French Open winner and number one in the seed list. The fact that the focus is on other players is probably quite right for the Romanian.

Petra Kvitova is to be, bookmakers in most of the betting offices before the 2018 Wimbledon tournament agree. That’s both good and bad news for Simona Halep: Well, because it’s another player’s attention, not almost exclusively hers, Halep, as it was before the French Open, when the eternal question was whether the 26-year-old could ever win a major.

The not so good news: If everything goes according to plan, Halep would meet Petra Kvitova in the quarter-finals in Wimbledon.

On the other hand: A place among the last eight players at the third Grand Slam tournament of the year is not a matter of course for Simona Halep, even though she has finished the last two years with this result. By 2014 she had already advanced one lap, but the lawn is not Halep’s favourite track.

With the title of Paris at the back it might be easier to play in Wimbledon, but the 2018 form of Simona Halep can only be puzzled: The first in the world rankings has cancelled her appearance in Eastbourne, meanwhile resorting to unusual methods: A training session with Lleyton Hewitt, 2002 Wimbledon Champion, gave Halep the penultimate touch.

Apart from the possible quarter-final against Kvitova, the draw for Wimbledon was not bad with Halep, Kurumi Nara for the opening match, then in any case a Chinese opponent (Zheng or Wang), then perhaps Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova: that could have been worse.

The lady from Constantia has settled in in London again this year. In addition to the WTA “Tennis on the Thames” event, Simona Halep also successfully attended an appointment for her new outfitter. And didn’t go home empty-handed.