Tennis – Australian Open – Fourth Round – Melbourne Park, Melbourne, Australia – January 27, 2020 – Romania’s Simona Halep in action during her match against Belgium’s Elise Mertens. REUTERS/Kim Hong-Ji
MELBOURNE (Reuters) – Simona Halep produced a match of near flawless counter-punching tennis and held off a furious second-set comeback to beat Elise Mertens 6-4 6-4 on Monday and advance to the quarter-finals of the Australian Open.
Halep, a beaten finalist at Melbourne Park two years ago, will next meet either Estonia’s 28th-seed Anett Kontaveit or Poland’s Iga Swiatek in the last eight and will draw confidence from her high intensity fourth-round win over Mertens.
Mertens blasted bags of winners but also made 38 unforced errors as Halep chased down every ball and kept making the Belgian put the ball back in play.
Mertens stormed back from a double break 3-0 deficit in the second set to level at 4-4, only for Halep to break in a marathon ninth game on her fifth break point opportunity and then serve out to love to advance to the last eight.
Reporting by Greg Stutchbury in Wellington; Editing by Peter Rutherford
