French Open: Halep overcomes wobble, Muguruza dominant

Omnisports

May 25, 2016 3:30 AM

Ten of the 11 seeds in action on day four of the women's draw progressed to round three, with Simona Halep recovering from an early wobble.

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Simona Halep overcame a slow start against Zarinya Diyas to ease into the third round of the French Open on Wednesday in straight sets.

Halep is into round three at Roland Garros for only the second time in her career thanks to the 7-6 (7-5) 6-2 win, her previous appearance coming two years ago when she went on to reach the final.

She is joined in the next stage by nine of the other seeds in action on Wednesday, Garbine Muguruza showing her quality as she only dropped two games against Myrtille Georges.

Ekaterina Makarova was the only seeded player not to progress as she let a first-set lead slip against Yanina Wickmayer.

SERVE CONCERNS HALEP DESPITE WIN

Halep may have yet to drop a set at Roland Garros this year but she was given a real scare by Zarina Diyas, the Kazakh taking a 4-1 lead in the opener.

The sixth seed's game was strewn with errors – particularly her serve – but she managed to dig deep and save the set in the breaker, before cruising home.

"My serve wasn't very strong today, I struggled a lot with it. But in the end I found the rhythm, I found the way to play aggressive and dominate the game."

MUGURUZA DISPATCHES GEORGES

Since dropping the first set in her opener against Anna-Karolina Schmiedlova, Muguruza has looked like she means business and that continued as she effortlessly brushed aside Georges 6-2 6-0.

The Spaniard needed less than an hour to book her third-round berth and she finished the match having won 84 per cent of points on her first serve and 67 on her second.

Muguruza hit 10 more winners than Georges and racked up 57 points on her way to victory.

BEGU WINS MARATHON AS SEEDS FLOURISH

While Makarova bowed out, nine of the other 10 seeds in action had few problems as they all secured straight-sets wins.

Things were not so easy for 25th seed Irina-Camelia Begu, though, as she spent three hours and 40 minutes trying to get past Coco Vandeweghe.

Begu fought back from losing the first set to force a decider that consisted of 18 games. The Romanian allowed one match point to slip through her fingers in the 14th game, but she made no mistake four games later to break Vandeweghe and book a clash with Annika Beck.

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