Mutua Madrid Open 2019: Simona Halep Sweeps Past Belinda Bencic

Simona Halep defeated Belinda Bencic 6-2, 6-7, 6-0 to reach her fourth finals at the Mutua Madrid Open 2019. Halep will face the winner of Sloane Stephens and Kike Bertens match in the finals of the Mutua Madrid Open 2019.

Simona Halep came into the match with the aim of reaching her fourth Madrid Open finals. Halep has a perfect record of 4-0 at the Madrid Open semifinals. She reached the finals in 2014 and claimed consecutive titles in 2016 and 2017.

Simona Halep reached the semifinals of the Mutua Madrid Open 2019 without dropping a set. She claimed comprehensive victories over  Margarita Gasparyan, Johanna Konta, Viktoriya Kuzmova, and Ashleigh Barty, on her course to the semifinals. Halep bagel Viktoriya Kuzmova in both the sets in the third round of Mutua Madrid Open 2019.

While Belinda Bencic had never won a match at Madrid prior to the Mutua Madrid Open 2019. The Swiss lost in the opening rounds in 2014 and 2015. She skipped the event in the next three seasons. But she got her breakthrough week in the Mutua Madrid Open 2019. Bencic defeated Alison Van Uytvanck, Svetlana Kuznetsova, Kateryna Kozlova before meeting Naomi Osaka in the quarterfinals. Belinda Bencic battled past World No. 1 in one of the best performance in her career. With this victory, Belinda made it 5-0 against the top-5 players on the WTA leaderboards in the 2019 season.

Simona Halep and Belinda Bencic had played each other 3 times before setting up a clash to reach the finals of the Mutua Madrid Open 2019. Surprisingly, the Swiss lead their head-to-head record 2-1. But this was the first time when the two met in a clay court event.

Simona Halep is more comfortable on clay than Bencic and also her incredible form at the Mutua Madrid Open 2019 made her the predictable winner prior to the match. The Romanian did not disappoint, equalling the head-to-head 2-2 against the Swiss.

In the first set, both the players exchanged early breaks but Simona Halep broke back to get a 3-2 lead. World No. 3, Halep was in complete control winning 4 consecutive games to claim the set 6-2.

The two players again exchanged breaks at the start of the second set. The battle of exchanging breaks continued as the two exchanged breaks for the third time in the match in the 4th and 5th game of the second set. Both the players held their serve till the tiebreaker. Belinda Bencic controlled the tiebreaker to win the tiebreaker 7-2.

Simona Halep came back stronger in the final set, winning the final set 6-0. This was Halep’s fourth bagel at the Mutua Madrid Open 2019 as well as in the season. With this, Halep became the first top-5 players to defeat Belinda Bencic in the 2019 season.