Sometimes you have to look beyond a scoreline and some scant ranking facts to find the actual story.
On Court Philippe Chatrier today, the No.4 seed Simona Halep blitzed 87th-ranked Alisa Kleybanova 6-0, 6-2 in 55 minutes.
It might seem there wasn’t too much to say about the match. How wrong can you be? As statistics go, an invitation to name the women’s world No.4 is an excellent pop quiz question of the moment. Step forward 22-year-old Halep, who rocketed up the rankings last year, improving 36 places to finish at No.11 after snaffling six titles (only Serena Williams won more) on grass, clay and hard courts. Impressive stuff. And she hasn’t stopped there, reaching the quarters in Australia and winning in Doha in 2014. She is clearly one to watch at this year’s French Open. That 2013 rise made her the international tennis writers Most Improved Player of the Year – and in the first round at Roland Garros 2014 she faced the international tennis writers’ Comeback Player of the Year in Alisa Kleybanova. The Russian, now 24, reached a peak ranking of 20th in February 2011 before being forced off the Tour with cancer, specifically Hodgkin’s lymphoma. She returned to WTA events only last August in Toronto, having seen her ranking sink to 589th at the end of 2012. By the close of 2013, she had climbed back to 185th, since when she has leapt almost another 100 places. Players don’t come tougher. These two had met twice before, most interestingly last year in Moscow, a tournament destined to be meaningful for both players. Kleybanova achieved the biggest success of her comeback to date by making the quarters, where Halep allowed her just one game in each set and went on to win the title.
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