By Chris Oddo | Wednesday May 16, 2018
Simona Halep took the first bold step towards retaining her No.1 ranking by powering past Naomi Osaka early on Wednesday at the Foro Italico in Rome, 6-1, 6-0.
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The Romanian took revenge on Osaka for the beating she received at Indian Wells when she won just three games against the 2018 BNP Paribas Open champion.
But on the slow red clay of Rome Halep was able to work Osaka around the court and she eventually worked her way into the 20-year-old’s head as well. Osaka lost the plot as Halep repeatedly forced her into longish rallies and the result was a one-sided shellacking that left Halep invigorated and Osaka shaking her head.
“For some reason I couldn’t hit a ball in the court,” Osaka told reporters after dropping 1-4 against Halep lifetime and 3-3 on the clay this season.
Halep was pleased to get through. She improved her record at Rome to 13-5 and jumped to 7-2 on clay this season.
“At 3-1 I felt that I’m a little bit ahead and I just relaxed myself and I opened the court much better.”
Halep can now look forward to a round of 16 clash with Madison Keys. The American won a pair of tiebreakers to edge past Donna Vekic, 7-6(2), 7-6(0).
It was a good day for a more senior member of the American contingent as well, as legendary Venus Williams gutted out a 6-2, 4-6, 7-5 win over Elena Vesnina to end a two-match losing streak against the Russian.
Williams improves to 10-5 on the season and 33-12 lifetime in the Eternal City. Williams broke 7 times on 14 attempts and managed to win 36 of 71 first-serve return points over the course of the two hour and 12-minute tussle.
Other winners on a busy Wednesday at the Foro Italico were No.7-seeded Carolina Garcia, No.9-seeded Sloane Stephens, No.11-seeded Angelique Kerber and No.14-seeded Daria Kasatkina.
Great Britain’s Johanna Konta also got a rare win on the clay, defeating Hsieh Su-Wei to improve to 7-13 lifetime on clay.