American Rogers Upsets Halep on Opening Day of Aussie Open
American Shelby Rogers produced the best match of her career during the Australian Open’s first slate of games, upending fourth-seed Simona Halep 6-3, 6-1 to earn her first career top five win while also handing Halep a first-round exit in Melbourne for the second-straight year.
“I think I played great today, trying to be aggressive going out there. My game plan worked: Just move forward, hit your shots, be really aggressive,” Rogers said afterwards. “When I’m doing that, I am playing well. [I’m] very happy with how I did today.”
Rogers was out-hitting Halep from the start, pushing the Romanian all around the court in the one hour and 15 minute contest. She got the first break of the match for a 4-2 lead, and went on to serve out the set 6-3.
Her momentum and confidence continued to grow into the second set, breaking for the 2-1 lead and never looking back, winning the final six games of the set to close out the straight-sets victory.
Overall, Rogers saved the only break point she faced and hit 22 winners to completely take Halep out of her game.
Rogers was unable to play in Melbourne last year due to injury, but put together a run to the French Open quarterfinals, giving her confidence to make a run at the Grand Slams, something she says has helped her.
“The biggest thing I took away from that was just that I can compete with the top players in the world and I’m good enough,” said Rogers about that Roland Garros run. “There are little things here and there I need to work on, but I’m here. I need to believe in myself. So I have definitely carried that away from the French Open and just been enjoying it a little bit more. There has been a lot of positive feedback, which has been nice. [I’m] just trying to keep that going.”
Rogers will look to keep that going against Australia’s Ashleigh Barty, who knocked off Annika Beck 6-4, 7-5 in her opening round match.
World number one and defending champion Angelique Kerber was able to push through into the second round by outlasting Ukraine’s Lesia Tsurenko 6-2, 5-7, 6-2.
“The first round is always tough, but I just tried to enjoy it as much as I could,” said Kerber. “I’m so, so happy to be in the second round.”
Kerber seemed to be on the verge of a routine victory up 5-3 in the second set, but Tsurenko responded with four straight games to close out the second set. But Kerber responded, breaking twice in the deciding set and saving the only one she faced to push through into the second round.
Up next for the world number one is German Carina Witthoeft, who knocked off Japan’s Eri Hozumi 7-5, 7-6.
French Open champion Garbine Muguruza received a first-round scare herself but managed to hold off New Zealand’s Marina Erakovic 7-5, 6-4 to advance. The Spaniard will take on American Samantha Crawford, who came back from a set down to defeat compatriot Lauren Davis 4-6, 6-3, 6-0.
Venus Williams was able to save her best tennis for the first-set tiebreaker and was able to advance in straight sets in her Melbourne opener, moving on with a 7-6(5), 7-5 over Ukraine’s Kateryna Kozlova.
“I really have to give her a lot of credit for playing a match that was not a lot of errors and just relentless,” said Venus. “I guess when I walk out there I have to expect that from my opponents and not an easy first round, but a great first round to get through, for sure.”
Venus will take on Switzerland’s Stefanie Voegele next. Voegele battled back from a set down to beat Kurumi Nara 2-6, 6-2, 6-3.
Monica Puig, Alison Riske, Eugenie Bouchard, Coco Vandeweghe, Carla Suarez-Navarro, Elina Svitolina and Anastasia Pavyluchenkova were other notable winners on the women’s side from day one at the Australian Open.
