London: With no other top-10 seed left in her half of the draw, Simona Halep could be forgiven for thinking that this might be the year when all roads at Wimbledon lead to the final.
After all, she has already reached the season’s first two major finals, winning at Roland Garros and finishing runner-up to Caroline Wozniacki in Australia.
However, it was just as well she is not one to indulge in such runaway dreams as she got a rude reality check when she fell 5-3 behind in the first set of her second-round contest against China’s Zheng Saisai.
The inscrutable look on her coach Darren Cahill’s face gave nothing away but he must have wondered if Halep would be the next big-name casualty at the grasscourt major. By the end of day four, five of the top six seeds had failed to survive.
But his Romanian charge showed all the hallmarks of a Grand Slam champion as she won the next 10 games on the trot to emerge unscathed from that fright and secure a 7-5, 6-0 win.
“I had (the) pressure (a) little bit of (possibly) losing that set. But I didn’t panic. I think this was the best thing that I did. I was just calm,” the top seed, who will next face Hsieh Su-wei from Taiwan, said.
“I really believe that I have the power to come back if I stay focused. I just opened my game better. After the first set, I started to play much better.” While Halep has conquered all before her on clay and proved she can make a big impression on hard courts, having reached the Australian Open final this year, grass remains a challenge.
Asked what she needs to do to lift the Venus Rosewater Dish, she said: “You need a better game, in my opinion, to win on grass. You have to be more aggressive, to go to the net more.
“I’m trying to adjust on this surface as much as possible. I have the courage to say maybe I have a chance to win this title. But I don’t want to focus on that. I just want to focus match by match.”
In Friday’s play, Madison Keys became another top-10 seed to lose at Wimbledon after her comeback fell short.
The American fought back from a set and two breaks down only to falter near the end as she lost to Russian qualifier Evgeniya Rodina 7-5, 5-7, 6-4 in the third round.
Keys admitted the possibility of facing compatriot Serena Williams in the next round played on her mind.
“Honestly, I think for the first time in a long time it was ... like, I had no idea what my draw was and all of a sudden I came in here the other day, it was like, so if you win, then you play this person (Serena),” she said.
“And I think that kept being in the back of my mind. I felt my mind go, you know, and move on. I don’t think I did a good job of keeping in the moment and playing the person who was in front of me.”
In a match full of big swings, the 10th-seeded Keys led 5-2 in the first set before the 120th-ranked Rodina won the next nine games to go 4-0 up in the second. But Keys won the next five games and broke again to level the set score. She then broke back to level the third set at 4-4, but Rodina immediately earned another break and served out the victory.
Six of the women’s top 10 seeds, including defending champion Garbine Muguruza, lost in the first two rounds.
Rodina made the fourth round of a Grand Slam for the first time. She was 0-15 in her career against top-20 ranked opponents before Friday’s win.
Rodina and Serena are two of six mothers who started in the main draw at Wimbledon this year.
“Serena is my idol,” Rodina said. “She’s a great player, a great mother and plays unbelievable tennis.”
Earlier, Ekaterina Makarova became the first player to reach the fourth round at Wimbledon.
Makarova followed up her victory over second-seeded Caroline Wozniacki by beating former semi-finalist Lucie Safarova of the Czech Republic 4-6, 6-4, 6-1 to reach the round of 16 for the third time.
Camila Giorgi of Italy advanced to the fourth round after saving a match point while beating Katerina Siniakova of the Czech Republic 3-6, 7-6, 6-2.
The 52nd-ranked Giorgi produced a backhand winner at 4-5, 30-40 in the second set, then won a tiebreaker to force a deciding set.
Having made 18 unforced errors in each of the first two sets, Giorgi tightened up her game to make just eight in the third and advance to the last 16 at Wimbledon for the first time since 2012.
She will next face Makarova.
