World No.71 Laura Siegemund of Germany recorded the most prominent victory of her career by ousting sixth-ranked Simona Halep in the second round of the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix.
Even though Halep was troubled by an ankle injury sustained during the Romania vs. Germany Fed Cup tie this past weekend, Siegemund pleased her home crowd with aggressive returns and ambitious angles, making the quarterfinals of the Premier tournament with a decisive 6-1 6-2 scoreline.
The 28-year-old qualifier Siegemund, who had upset Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova in the first round, is continuing her 2016 rise which includes her first ever Premier-level quarterfinals earlier this month in Charleston and a win over world No.22 Jelena Jankovic at the Australian Open.
In Thursday’s second-round match at the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix, Halep hit only three winners to ten unforced errors, while Siegemund recorded 28 winners to 14 unforced errors. Also, Siegemund converted as many as 5 out of 6 break points.
Next up for the German is US Open finalist Roberta Vinci of Italy, who advanced to the quarterfinals with a 6-3 6-4 win over Julia Goerges.
Stay tuned as later today our photographer Jimmie48 will publish his Thursday’s photo gallery from Stuttgart.
I’m sure the crowd would love to see a Siegemund-Kerber final.
Kudos to Çağla Büyükakçay for making her first WTA final in Istanbul. Shame to the rest of the WTA players for not making any comments on the terrorism in Turkey like they did for Belgium as reflected in her tweet:
Çağla Büyükakçay @CaglaBuyukakcay Mar 22
I am very sorry for Belgium. But none of my international colleagues from Wta didn’t share anything about attacks in Turkey
Istanbul was Constantinople
Now it’s Istanbul, not Constantinople
Been a long time gone, Constantinople
Now it’s Turkish delight on a moonlit night
Every gal in Constantinople
Lives in Istanbul, not Constantinople
So if you’ve a date in Constantinople
She’ll be waiting in Istanbul
Jim, that’s true. That’s why I never even comment on political events, as it is really hard to always be objective and mention everyone when needed. I don’t like to give preference to any nation or religion, so I leave myself out of the conversation altogether.