World No. 1 Serena Williams and defending BNP Paribas Open champion Simona Halep collide in a blockbuster quarter-final showdown at Indian Wells on Wednesday night.
One year after they were first scheduled to meet in the semi-finals of the BNP Paribas Open, Serena Williams and Simona Halep will finally meet in the Californian desert on Wednesday - just one round earlier. Last year Williams - returning from a well-documented 14-year boycott of Indian Wells - was forced to withdraw from their final-four encounter with a knee problem. Halep ultimately received a walkover into the final, where she won the biggest title of her career and well and truly established herself within the top 3 of the rankings.
The pair would rekindle their rivalry later in 2015 at Cincinnati, where Williams emerged a 6-3 7-6(5) winner in the final. Halep hasn’t reached a final since and has endured a turbulent start to 2016. The Romanian has crashed out in the opening rounds of the Australian Open, Dubai and Doha, while simultaneously putting off planned nose surgery, which clearly affected her in one way or another on court throughout the first two months of this season.
However Halep is enjoying a sudden return to top form at Indian Wells, surging into the quarter-finals without the loss of a set. Players often display their best tennis when they return to a scene of their greatest triumph, and that’s certainly been the case with Halep so far this tournament. A second round 6-1 6-1 romp of Vania King was followed up by an extremely impressive 6-2 6-4 triumph over the always-threatening Ekaterina Makarova. Benefitting from a retirement due to illness from Barbora Strycova in the Round of 16, Halep says she is relishing the chance to take on Williams in the quarters.
"I would like to play against her; I'm looking forward to it, and I know she's the best player in the world, so I have nothing to lose. I want just to go and fight for my chance - I know that I have a chance.
"I will go with confidence, positivity and just fighting for the match."
Simona Halep (Photo by Sean M. Haffey/Getty Images)
Top seed Williams is playing at Indian Wells for just the second time since winning the 2001 title, and she will be hoping to add a second championship over the next few days. As has become the norm in recent years, Williams has played a limited scheduled to start the season. In fact, this is the first tournament Williams has contested since falling to a shock loss at the hands of Angelique Kerber in the Australian Open final in January.
The 21-time Grand Slam champion doesn’t take long to get the engine running though, and she’s illustrated that through back-to-back-to-back straight set thumpings of Laura Siegemund, Yulia Putintseva and Kateryna Bondarenko in her first three matches at Indian Wells. Still without a title since defeating Halep at Cincinnati last August, this is an extremely important tournament for Williams to re-establish her dominance as the undisputed champion figure on the WTA Tour. After a ridiculously successful opening eight months of 2015, question marks have plagued Williams since THAT loss to Roberta Vinci in the US Open semi-finals - questions that can only be answered if she returns to the winners circle consistently on the biggest stages.
Williams and Halep have only ever met on the biggest stages, with Serena enjoying a dominant 6-1 record. Halep has only ever taken two sets of Williams in her six defeats, while her only win came in the round robin stage of the 2014 WTA Championships - with Williams later avenging that loss in the final. A win for Halep here would be among the most significant in her career, and give her a chance to defend her title and kick-start her 2016 campaign. A win for Williams would place her firmly in the drivers seat to capture a whopping 70th WTA title and further extend her lead at the top of the rankings. Before this tournament she would be the overwhelming favourite - but Halep is showing signs of recapturing her best form. Strap yourselves in, this promises to be an absolute cracker of a battle under the lights of Stadium 1.
