A lot of players have been playing against "the new Halep" for the first time over the last year, and this was another one of those intriguing match-ups, as the pair's only two previous meetings came back in 2012, when Halep was ranked No.50 and No.47, respectively.
Here was a No.5-ranked Halep, winner of her first seven WTA titles over the last 12 months, and hungry for her first win over Sharapova. But Sharapova has been a new player the last few weeks - well, renewed, more like - going 10-0 since the start of the clay court season, finally finding her very best tennis again after sitting out the second half of last year with a shoulder injury. Could she keep her clay court winning streak going? It didn't look like she would after the first set.
Their winners were comparable - Sharapova led that stat 4-3 - but she also had three times as many unforced errors, 15-5, and Halep cruised, 6-1. Things swung completely in the other direction from there, though.
The shots that were flying on her began finding the court - deep, powerful and overwhelming, as usual - and Sharapova was in complete control over the next two sets, breaking early in both and never looking back to win, 1-6, 6-2, 6-3. The numbers in the next two sets speak for themselves. After going 4-15 in winners to unforced errors in the first set, Sharapova went 18-15 in the next two (and Halep went from 3-5 to 12-19).
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