Halep stunned by Hsieh at Wimbledon

World No.1 Simona Halep could not hold on to a 5-2 third-set lead, slumping to a 3-6 6-4 7-5 loss to 48th-ranked Hsieh Su-Wei in the third round at Wimbledon on Saturday.

It’s hard to know exactly where to classify this upset on the scale of significance. Ordinarily, a top-ranked, top-seeded player exiting a Grand Slam event before the second week is huge news.

But Halep was just the latest top-10 seed to fall. In fact, just one remains – No.7 Karolina Pliskova, who recovered from 6-3 3-1 down on Friday against Mihaela Buzarnescu to secure her position in the fourth round.

READ: Nadal secures No.1 ranking, Zverev out

Some seeds did indeed survive, including 2016 finalist Angelique Kerber, the 11th seed who beat the dangerous Naomi Osaka of Japan 6-2 6-4.

Last year’s Roland Garros champion Jelena Ostapenko, seeded 12th, thrashed qualifier Vitalia Diatchenko 6-0 6-4 to to join Kerber in the fourth round, and No.14 seed Daria Kasatkina also moved on thanks to a 7-5 6-3 win over Australia’s Ash Barty.

Former world No.4 Dominika Cibulkova and former world No.7 Belinda Bencic both moved into the last 16 with straight-sets wins over Elise Mertens and Carla Suarez Navarro respectively.

But back to Halep. Was her loss more of a surprise than defending champion Garbine Muguruza’s three-set loss to unheralded Alison Van Uytvanck? Or title favourite Petra Kvitova’s first-round shocker against Aliaksandra Sasnovich? Or Eastbourne winner Caroline Wozniacki’s second-round exit at the hands of Ekaterina Makarova?

It’s hard to say. But this was big. And it hurt.

“I know she’s mixing the rhythm, she’s playing everything. It was really hard on grass court to do better, Still I had 5-2 in the third set. I had match point. Just didn’t go my way today,” Halep said.

“I just believe that I was not very positive on court. The match was very unprofessional for me. But I am too tired. I was too tired. I have pain everywhere.

“I will not find the excuses about this match, she deserved to win, but still I’m sad about myself today.”

Women's Manic Monday lineup set for #Wimbledon Round of 16

Hsieh-Cibulkova
Ostapenko-Sasnovich
Van Uytvanck-Kasatkina
Kerber-Bencic

Karolina Pliskova-Bertens
Görges-Vekic
Serena-Rodina
Giorgi-Makarova

9 unseeded players. Only 2 top 10 players (Pliskova/Kerber)
14 Europeans

— Christopher Clarey (@christophclarey) July 7, 2018

Until she admitted the workload of the past six months – runner-up at the Australian Open, champion at Roland Garros, and all that came in between – had left her drained, Halep had looked relaxed and sharp at the All England Club in her first two rounds.

She breezed through her first-round match and despite trailing 5-3 in the opening set of her next match against Zheng Saisai, she rattled through 10 straight games to close out victory.

And she looked destined for the second week when she pushed ahead by a substantial margin in the third set against Hsieh, until her opponent’s unorthodox repertoire of shots and court speed, plus her own errors, brought her undone.

“The difficulty was bigger today because of her game. She played really well. She stayed there for every point. All the credit to her,” Halep said.

“She had, like, more things to do on court today. She was mixing the game. She deserved to win.”

Maybe the result shouldn’t have come as a surprise.

Hsieh Su-Wei has three Top 10 wins in her career.

They have all come at the Slams, all in the last 14 months:

2017 Roland Garros: d. Konta
2018 Australian Open: d. Muguruza
2018 Wimbledon: d. Halep

Slammin’ Hsieh Su-Wei. #Wimbledon

— WTA Insider (@WTA_insider) July 7, 2018

Just six months ago at the Australian Open, Hsieh confounded Muguruza with that very game and came extremely close to toppling Kerber before the German won a fourth-round epic at Rod Laver Arena.

Hsieh is also handy on a grass-court; the 32-year-old is a Wimbledon doubles champion.

“I don’t learn how to be giant killer. I just want to feel free and enjoy the match,” Hsieh said.

“You know anything can happen on the court. You don’t have big chance to win, because they’re very good. So all I want to do is just go on the court and hit the shot and run every point and enjoy it.

“(At) 5-2, against this big player on the big court, you could get smashed, a love game like this. It’s not easy. I just try to run as much as I can, try to catch every ball. I’m doing good.”

In the fourth round Hsieh plays Cibulkova.