No. 3 Simona Halep loses to Mirjana Lucic-Baroni in second round

No. 3 Simona Halep stunned by Mirjana Lucic-Baroni 7–5, 6–1 in the second round of the French Open on Wednesday.

Courtney Nguyen | May 27, 2015

No. 3 Simona Halep loses to Mirjana Lucic-Baroni in second round /

PARIS – Sometimes a player just has your number. For the second time in the last three majors, No. 70 Mirjana Lucic-Baroni has ended No. 3 Simona Halep's tournament. Lucic-Baroni once again found her best level to beat Halep 7–5, 6–1 to advance to the third round of the French Open. The Croatian veteran also beat Halep in the third round of the U.S. Open last fall.

A finalist in Paris in 2014, Halep came into the French Open this year after a sub-par series of lead-ups. The lack of confidence showed in her opening match, a nervy straight set win over Evgeniya Rodina. Asked to recall her U.S. Open loss to Lucic-Baroni, Halep said she felt too much pressure in that match and was "blocked" from playing her best tennis.

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On Wednesday it was déjà vu. Halep never looked sharp or comfortable throughout the match, which lasted just 71 minutes. Lucic-Baroni was able to win 80% on her first serves and 54% on her second serves, which Halep, one of the best returners in the women's game, struggled to read. Lucic-Baroni fired 29 winners to 27 unforced errors, while Halep mustered just five winners and hit 15 unforced errors. The Romanian simply could not adjust to Lucic-Baroni's flat hitting, which was exacerbated by the warmer conditions on Wednesday.

"I was going to have to play a great match again and back up sort of what I did at the U.S. Open," Lucic-Baroni said. "Because sometimes people say, 'Oh, it's one day everything went in,' and I don't look at it like that. I know I played really well. I have been working really hard, and I knew today I had to play some great tennis. I was ready for it."

What is disconcerting for Halep is how she's exited from her last three majors. At the U.S. Open she lost a tight first set to Lucic-Baroni only to give away the second set 6–2. At the Australian Open quarterfinals in January she lost a close first set 6–4 to Ekaterina Makarova only to disappear in the second, losing it 6–0. She vowed after losing to Makarova that she would never go down without a fight again. But the trend continued on Wednesday.

"I couldn't feel that I'm prepared 100% to play on clay court, but, I have to accept this," Halep said. She came into the tournament failing to make a clay-court final on her best surface. "I have to take day by day. I worked a lot. Maybe too much. That's why I was contracted and I couldn't play. I couldn't feel the game."

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One positive from Halep's perspective is she seems to have identified what's gone wrong in her game. After a strong start to the season that saw her win three titles in Shenzhen, Dubai, and Indian Wells, she feels she's tinkered with her game too much as she's prepared for clay.

"Maybe I changed a bit the strategy of my practices," Halep said. "I just wanted to hit too strong maybe, and to change the game is not good. I have to play like what I feel on court and just to be like, to create the game. So I started to hit the ball too strong, and that is not my style. I don't feel it, and I don't handle it. So I have to go back, you know, in my game and just to train again how I did till now."

Lucic-Baroni will play 29th seed Alize Cornet in the third round.

This post will be updated.

SNAPSHOTS FROM DAY 4

French Open Day 4

Mirjana Lucic-Baroni

Lucic-Baroni scored an upset over No. 3 seed Simona Halep.

Kei Nishikori

Nishikori d. Bellucci 7–5, 6–4, 6–4.

Sam Stosur

Stosur d. Hesse 6–0, 6–1.

Thomaz Bellucci

Amandine Hesse

Hesse lost to Sam Stosur in the second round.

Simona Halep

Maria Sharapova

Francesca Schiavone, Kimiko Date-Krumm

Ana Ivanovic

Sergiy Stakhovsky

Stakhovsky lost to American Steve Johnson.

Steve Johnson

Daria Gavrilova

Gavrilova retired with injury down 6-1 No. 20 Sabine Lisicki.

Elina Svitolina

Jo-Wilfred Tsonga

Tsonga d. Dudi Sela 6–4, 6–1, 6–1.

Gael Monfils

Fans at the French Open

Yulia Putintseva

Nicolas Mahut

Mahut upset No. 24 seed Ernests Gulbis in four sets.

Misaki Doi

Aleksandra Krunic

Gael Monfils

Jo-Wilfried Tsonga

Ana Ivanovic

Published May 27, 2015

COURTNEY NGUYEN

Contributor, SI.com Nguyen is a freelance writer for SI.com, providing full coverage of professional tennis both on and off the court. Her content has become a must-read for fans and insiders to stay up-to-date with a sport that rarely rests. She has appeared on radio and TV talk shows all over the world and is one of the co-hosts of No Challenges Remaining, a weekly podcast available on iTunes. Nguyen graduated from the University of California, Irvine in 1999 and received a law degree from the University of California, Davis in 2002. She lives in the Bay Area.