This content was published 6 years ago. It may refer to a past edition of the Internazionali d’Italia.

Simona Halep recorded her first victory over Laura Siegemund to reach the third round at the Internazionali BNL d’Italia. The Madrid winner, who had lost both her previous matches against the German in straight sets, including in the semifinals of Stuttgart last month, needed one hour 40 minutes to defeat Siegemund 64 64.

Siegemund looked dangerous from the start, demonstrating her trademark dropshots in the opening game to help her to an early break. Her initial lead was short-lived however as Halep broke straight back and that set the tone for the match. There were 11 breaks of serve in total in the match which took place in very hot conditions on Pietrangeli Court.

While in their previous encounters Siegemund had dominated proceedings with her wide variety of shots, on this occasion Halep appeared more focused and in control and this enabled her to better deal with what was coming off the Stuttgart champion’s racket.

“Yeah, definitely is really difficult to play against her, because she has the rhythm all the time, dropshot or just slice long. Then she hits strong the ball. Flat, then a little bit slower. So it’s not easy to stay there in the match,” said Halep.

“But today what I did I think I did pretty well to stay focused. Even if I was a little bit nervous, I stayed focused. I stayed strong. I didn’t give her time to play what she likes, so I think I pushed her a little bit back.”

Next up for Halep will be No. 12 seed Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova.