Bad news for Simona Halep and her fans as the former world no.1 had to withdraw from Toronto during her match against a surprising Marie Bouzkova.
The Romanian sensation was trailing on a 4-6 scoreline before retiring because of a problem to her left Achilles.
Simona about her injury
The Romanian was disappointed for the retirement and not being able to defend the Rogers Cup title that she won last year in Montreal. Simona took the decision because even if she managed to win the match in 3 sets, she was well aware that she had to face Serena Williams the following day to make things even worse for her leg.
After the match, Simona commented “I felt [the Achilles problems] since the first match here. Today I felt it more, so that’s why I decided to retire. Tomorrow, it would have been Serena, and it is not easy.”
Will Simona play in Cincinnati and the US Open?
The Romanian took the decision to withdraw in order to preserve her body for the last slam of the year. At this point, it is plausible to assume that she might skip Cincinnati to get ready for the US Open. However, she still needs to confirm her plans.
Marie Bouzkova
The upcoming Czech is having the week of her life after reaching the semifinal in Toronto coming straight from the qualifications and without conceding a set on the way to comment:
“Of course I’m disappointed that Simona had to retire today. As I said on the court, I really enjoyed playing against her, even if it was just for one set. It was great experience, and now I’m looking forward to playing against Serena.
We had real long rallies. So maybe it was just something that she wanted to prevent going to the second set and going, you know, fighting more. So she was just scared, you know, to get it worse.”
Marie Bouzkova’s live rankings
The Czech is shooting up in the rankings, and she has now 1035 “live points” to be 38 places up in the live rankings. This means that she is projected to be the new world no.53 if she loses in the semifinal to Serena Williams.
| INJURED SIMONA |
| Embed from Getty Images |
