Simona Halep eases into the eighths in Madrid (WTA)

Romanian tennis player Simona Halep, world number three, qualified without emotions in the eighth finals of the WTA 1,000 tournament in Madrid, endowed with total prizes of 2,549,105 euros, on Sunday, after defeating the Chinese Saisai Zheng, with 6-0, 6-4. Halep (29, 3 WTA) won in one hour and 19 minutes. The Romanian tennis player secured a 34,048 euros cheque and 120 WTA points. Halep is at the third victory in as many matches with Zheng (27 years old, 57 WTA), after winning the semifinals in Shenzhen in 2015, 6-2, 6-3, and in 2018 when winning the second round at Wimbledon, with 7-5, 6-0. In the third round, Halep will face the winner between the Belgian Elise Mertens (number 13 seed) and the Kazakh Elena Ribakina. Simona Halep won the Madrid tournament twice, in 2016 and 2017, but also played two other finals, one lost in 2014 to the Russian Maria Sharapova and another in 2019, lost to the Dutch Kiki Bertens.AGERPRES(RO - editor: Mihai Tenea; EN - editor: Maria Voican)