Enviado: 27 de Mayo de 2015, 11:18
French Open Tennis: Mirjana Lucic-Baroni-Simona Halep
We were correct in taking two big handicap starts ysterday, opposing two big name players in Serena Willams and Pera Kvitova and I have to do likewise today with last year's runner up Simona Halep. The world #3 has had a very solid 2015, but has not been sweeping players aside with quite the same authority as she was through early rounds last year and was taken to 22 games here in Round 1 by Evgeniya Rodina who is very much a journeywoman player, but nowhere near the standard of the two we spoke of in those terms yesterday and she has played very little tennis on the WTA tour in recent years.
Mirjana Lucic-Baroni is of a different level entirely, she has had a well documented troubled life off court and was effectively lost to the game for 8 years, MLB was a multi winner as a teenager and there is no knowing how good she would have become, had she been able to stick with tennis through those lost years. Since her return she has
won again on the main tour and whilst he is much better suited by faster surfaces nowadays and we will see the best of her after this event, she has taken at least a set from the last three top 20 ranked players she has faced who are 1.69 m or less. Halep would have lost on this handicap to ten of the 13 players she has played who are 1.8 m + in 2015, wih one tie and a couple of those were very lowly ranked, one outside the top 300. The older taller girl plus the handiap for me.
Mirjana Lucic-Baroni +7 games 1.925 Pinnacle Sports/Sportmarket Pro.