Madrid Open: Simona Halep makes dominant winning start; Maria Sharapova ends four-match losing streak

Madrid: Two-time defending champion Simona Halep brushed aside Ekaterina Makarova 6-1, 6-0 in the first round of the Madrid Open on Sunday. Top-seeded Halep recorded her 13th consecutive victory on Madrid’s clay courts. “I was moving great. I felt the game, I like to play on this court,” Halep said. “Always when I come back here, I feel a little bit more relaxed, so maybe that’s why I can touch my best level every time I play.” [caption id=“attachment_4458793” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] Simona Halep celebrates winning her match against Ekaterina Makarova at Madrid Open. Reuters [/caption] Maria Sharapova won for the first time since the Australian Open as she beat Mihaela Buzarnescu, 6-4, 6-1, on Sunday in the Madrid Open. The Russian five-time Grand Slam champion has been struggling with an arm injury, losing her last four matches, crashing out in the first round in Stuttgart last week. In-form Romanian Buzarnescu reached the Prague Open final last week, but unseeded Sharapova, who took the title in Madrid in 2014, dominated this first round meeting. Sharapova jumped to a 5-2 lead in the first set but Buzarnescu briefly showed some resistance by winning the next two games. The Russian seized the momentum by breaking again to clinch the set and dropped only one more game as she won in 82 minutes to set up a second-round match with another Romanian, Irina-Camelia Begu, who upset No 5 seed Jelena Ostapenko the evening before. Second-seeded Caroline Wozniacki also eased through, dispensing with Daria Gavrilova 6-3, 6-1. The Australian Open champion is playing a week after she withdrew from the Istanbul Cup due to an abdominal injury. Third-seeded and home favorite Garbine Muguruza also advanced with a 6-4, 6-2 win over Shuai Peng, hitting five aces and breaking Peng’s serve four times. Victoria Azarenka prevailed over Aleksandra Krunic 6-3, 6-3 in her first claycourt match since the 2016 French Open and the birth of her son. Azarenka said she will compete throughout the European grass and claycourt season, including at the French Open and Wimbledon. The 28-year-old Belarusian missed the majority of last season due to a prolonged legal battle over the custody of her son and only played at Wimbledon and in Mallorca, exiting both competitions in the round of 16. The twice Australian Open champion returned to the court at Indian Wells in March, where she was ousted in the second round, and also progressed to the semi-finals of the Miami Open. “I’m playing all the way through Wimbledon,” Azarenka told reporters after her 6-3 6-3 win over Aleksandra Krunic in the first round in Madrid. “I play Rome, I play Paris, I’m going to play Mallorca, I’m going to play Wimbledon. That’s my schedule for the next couple months. It’s definite. “I found out close to the end of April that I could go… I’ve done a little bit of better preparation overall. I’m trying to get a little bit more stability right now.” “I was so happy to be on that plane, you have no idea. You have no idea how happy I was to just have a fresh European air, European food, everything.” Azarenka’s long absence from the game had caused her to fall to 208 in the WTA rankings but the Belarusian’s run this year has helped her climb back up to 99. Azarenka, a finalist at Madrid in 2011 and 2012, will face sixth seed Karolina Pliskova, who won the Stuttgart Open title earlier this month, in the second round of the French Open warmup tournament on Monday. Petra Kvitova, who won in Madrid in 2011 and 2015, brushed aside Leisa Tsurenko 6-1, 6-2, and Sloane Stephens beat Silvia Soler-Espinosa 6-3, 6-2. Other winners included Samantha Stosur, Sorana Cirstea and Carla Suarez Navarro. With inputs from agencies