Australian Open 2021 - Simona Halep battles past Ajla Tomljanovic to reach third round after scare

ByRichard Newman

Updated 10/02/2021 at 12:06 GMT

The two-time Grand Slam champion Simona Halep needed to come from behind to beat the Australian Ajla Tomlanovic in three sets, 4-6, 6-4, 7-5 - she’ll face Veronika Kudermetova in the third round. The 2021 Australian Open is live on Eurosport. Watch every match live and ad-free on the Eurosport app and eurosport.co.uk. You can download the Eurosport app for iOS and Android now.

Two-time Grand Slam champion Simona Halep needed to come from behind to battle past home favourite Ajla Tomljanovic and reach the third round of the Australian Open, 4-6 6-4 7-5.

The Romanian second seed raced into a two game lead at the start of the match, only for Tomljanovic to steal the next four, before Halep levelled at 4-4. But the Australian’s confidence wasn’t dented, as she broke again to take the first set 6-4.

The pair exchanged breaks in the second set, until Halep got the better of Tomljanovic’s serve in the seventh game to go 4-3 up, and eventually served out the set to level at one-set all.

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But it was the decider where the drama really came to life, as Tomljanovic opened up a 5-2 lead and looked destined to produce the win of her career.

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Halep, though, is known as a fierce competitor, and broke back when her opponent served for the match at 5-3.

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From there, the former French Open and Wimbledon champion took the next four games to end the hopes of Tomljanovic - who had threatened to pull off one of the upsets of the tournament so far - taking the deciding set 7-5.

Speaking after the match, Halep said she expected a tough encounter, but maybe not quite as hard as it ended up being.

Highlights | Ajla Tomljanovic - Simona Halep

“I’m happy I can smile now, I was not that positive when I was talking to myself”, she said after she was asked about berating herself at the baseline when she was down in the decider.

“I didn’t talk about the score, I was just saying I’m not strong enough to play against her, but in the end mentally I was a little bit stronger.

“I had the desire to win the match, and I didn’t want to give up”.

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Halep faces Russia’s Veronika Kudermetova next, an opponent she doesn’t know much about.

“I don’t believe we’ve played against each other, so it’s going to be a new challenge. I will watch a little bit of video. But I just want to recover after this match. If I’ll be 100% in two days, that’s great.”

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