PARIS—Impeccable depth, power and precision off both her forehand and backhand were the external manifestations of Simona Halep’s prowess today. In the semifinals of Roland Garros, the 26-year-old Romanian earned a surprisingly emphatic 6-1, 6-4 victory over 2016 French champion Garbine Muguruza.
But as the world has seen so often, with Halep it’s the internal factors that best tell the story. It would be too simple for tennis matches to be decided solely by groundstrokes.
Consider the ethereal yet powerful concepts of confidence and faith. Similar? Different? How? Knowing which propelled which was a chicken-egg question.
If you’d posted as many fine results as Halep has over the past five years, you’d think confidence would abound. Confidence: belief based on data. Here Halep was, in the semis of Roland Garros, ranked number one in the world—ahead of best-ever Serena Williams, ahead of long-gone title holder Jelena Ostapenko, ahead of past winners Muguruza and Maria Sharapova.
But despite all that data, it remained a painful truth that confidence had taken Halep only so far—close enough to smell the possibilities, but not near enough to taste them.