Croatian world No.70 Mirjana Lucic Baroni combined aggressiveness and consistency to stun the 2014 French Open runner-up Simona Halep in the second round of this year’s edition of the tournament. It may be hard to believe, but Lucic Baroni now has a 2-0 record against the third-ranked Romanian, having upset her early at another Grand Slam, last year in the third round of the US Open.
What’s interesting about Lucic Baroni is that the 33-year-old turned pro back in 1997 and last year she won her first WTA title after a 16-year hiatus, beating Venus Williams in the final of Quebec, while the two victories over Halep are her biggest career wins in terms of ranking.
In today’s French Open second-rounder, despite an overwhelmingly small number of winners counting just five, Halep managed to stay alive all the way to 5-all in the first set, but from that moment, Lucic Baroni won seven games in a row and almost bageled the third seed in the second set. Final score: 7-5 6-1.
Next for Lucic-Baroni is French 29th seed Alize Cornet. (photo: Jimmie48)
It will give big advantage to Ivanovic. But she is struggle as well. Two three-setter matches. Hopefully she recover well and make the semi.
Whoa! I better change my year-end prediction on your competition post 🙂
I watched the match last night and Mirjana was really confident throughout the whole match. She literally cooled down Halepeño. She deserved that win and it caused a big shockwave on Simona’s quarter.
Kartik, submissions are no longer eligible 🙂