Romanian tennis player Simona Halep won the WTA 1000 Canadian Open in Toronto, for the third time in her career. The 30-year-old two-time Grand Slam champion prevailed in the final over Brazilian Beatriz Haddad Maia by 2-1 (6:3, 2:6, 6:3) in 2 hours and 18 minutes.
This was Simona Halep’s 24th WTA title, while her Brazilian rival had her first WTA 1000 final. Also, the former No 1 sealed her return to the Top 10 in the most authoritative way.
Simona Halep, who won in Toronto in 2016 and 2018, lifted the third title from the same tournament for the first time. But there is an explanation for this since she registered 38 victories during the year, and only Iga Swiatek has more than her in 2022 – 48 victories.
The match was quite contested, with Simona Halep winning in the small details. She converted 5 of 10 break points compared to 4 of 9 for her opponent. But the Romanian also made four fewer unforced errors and managed to pull out the match despite nine double faults.
Simona Halep conceded the first break of the match and after a combination of two closed serves, Beatriz Haddad Maia took a 3:0 lead. But after that, she began to struggle on the returns and the next six games went in Halep’s favor. However, this did not help her in any way, as the next series was for the Brazilian, who took a lead by 4:0 in the second set.
In the third set, Simona Halep made one more break and after leading 5:2, the match was in control. She ended it on her second match point and raised her arms in victory.
Simona Halep returns to the Top 10. She has been ranked world No 1 in singles twice between 2017 and 2019, for a total of 64 weeks, which ranks eleventh in the history of the Women’s Tennis Association rankings.
