Simona Halep has had to work really hard to reach a significant milestone in her career which she did with a victory over Caroline Garcia at the
Miami Open.
The Romanian struggled immensely at the start of the match but pulled herself together in time to fight back and win the match 3-6 6-4 6-0. The start of the match was very good for Garcia who served excellent which Halep admitted:
"She started very well and her serve bothered me a lot, the kick. I needed time to get used to it and to get the rhythm. I felt like in the second set I start moving better. I relax my legs and I could work more with my legs. I needed a little bit of extra power with her because she's a powerful opponent, and I have always to push her back."
Halep had a tough time serving which improved following a medical timeout midway through the 2nd set when she trailed 3-1. On that she said:
"I struggled with my serve. I struggled with my shoulder a little bit, so the attention was a little bit on the pain."
She continued explaining the background of the injury:
"When I came here, I didn't feel pain...I was really good. But then I practiced some tough sets with other players and I started to feel again. And now it's getting a little bit worse. But I just feel it when I serve, so I'm trying just to do the recovery as much as possible to serve better, because today it was very slow... I will see how it's gonna hold next days."
The match will go down as a milestone one for Halep as it was her 400th main draw match victory to which she commented:
"I'm really happy to hear that. It's impressive that I won so many matches on main draw. I have many years there in the top also... when I face some tough moments during the matches, I know what to do. It's from those 400 victories."