Simona Halep said she will make a decision about whether to play the US Open on Monday after the world No 2 picked up where she left off in Dubai by winning the Prague Open.
Speaking after her victory over Elise Mertens in the final in the Czech capital, the 28-year-old Romanian said "she just needed her time" to make a decision.
Halep has appeared reluctant to make the trip to the US, which is still in the grip of the COVID-19 pandemic, but said this week she needed to see what "changes" the organisers would make in terms of "travelling and stuff".
"Now it's too fast to take a decision, I just want to enjoy this victory and then I will have a thought about the US Open," she added.
With world No 1 Ash Barty and 2019 US Open champion Bianca Andreescu, as well as a host of other top players, already deciding against playing at Flushing Meadows, organisers will be hoping Halep says yes.
Halep was playing her first event since coronavirus pandemic shut down tennis in March. At her most recent event, she won the 20th title of her career at the Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships.
After some rusty performances during the week, Halep found her groove to beat Mertens 6-2, 7-5 and said she was encouraged by her form and the health protocols put in place in Prague.
"We felt really safe here and all the rules were respected," she told reporters. "It's a bit stressful but the fact that everyone was good these 10 days means everything was done well."
Halep had struggled past Polona Hercog in her first match of the week and was also far from her best against Barbora Krejcikova and compatriot Irina-Camelia Begu.
But apart from some understandable fatigue, she looked far more like herself against Belgian Mertens, winning in one hour 33 minutes to earn her 21st career WTA trophy.
Mertens blazed into a 2-0 lead with a flurry of winners, but Halep found her range from the baseline responded by reeling off seven successive games to take control.
Halep did not have things all her own way though and was broken back early in the second set as Mertens again went on the attack. A wobbly service game allowed Halep to move a break ahead again in the fifth game, although Mertens retaliated again to level the second set at 4-4.
Halep broke to lead 6-5 though and finished it off with a heavy forehand.
"Second set I was 4-2 up but dead and felt very tired," she said. "But today, mentally I was really strong which allowed me to win in two sets."
Our legal consultants
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Quick pearls of wisdom
Focus on gratitude: And do so deeply, he says. “Think of one to three things a day that you’re grateful for. It needs to be specific, too, don’t just say ‘air.’ Really think about it. If you’re grateful for, say, what your parents have done for you, that will motivate you to do more for the world.”
Know how to fight: Shetty married his wife, Radhi, three years ago (he met her in a meditation class before he went off and became a monk). He says they’ve had to learn to respect each other’s “fighting styles” – he’s a talk it-out-immediately person, while she needs space to think. “When you’re having an argument, remember, it’s not you against each other. It’s both of you against the problem. When you win, they lose. If you’re on a team you have to win together.”
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Seemar’s top six for the Dubai World Cup Carnival:
1. Reynaldothewizard
2. North America
3. Raven’s Corner
4. Hawkesbury
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MATCH INFO
Manchester United v Everton
Where: Old Trafford, Manchester
When: Sunday, kick-off 7pm (UAE)
How to watch: Live on BeIN Sports 11HD
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
GROUPS
Group Gustavo Kuerten
Novak Djokovic (x1)
Alexander Zverev (x3)
Marin Cilic (x5)
John Isner (x8)
Group Lleyton Hewitt
Roger Federer (x2)
Kevin Anderson (x4)
Dominic Thiem (x6)
Kei Nishikori (x7)
Gertrude Bell's life in focus
A feature film
At one point, two feature films were in the works, but only German director Werner Herzog’s project starring Nicole Kidman would be made. While there were high hopes he would do a worthy job of directing the biopic, when Queen of the Desert arrived in 2015 it was a disappointment. Critics panned the film, in which Herzog largely glossed over Bell’s political work in favour of her ill-fated romances.
A documentary
A project that did do justice to Bell arrived the next year: Sabine Krayenbuhl and Zeva Oelbaum’s Letters from Baghdad: The Extraordinary Life and Times of Gertrude Bell. Drawing on more than 1,000 pieces of archival footage, 1,700 documents and 1,600 letters, the filmmakers painstakingly pieced together a compelling narrative that managed to convey both the depth of Bell’s experience and her tortured love life.
Books, letters and archives
Two biographies have been written about Bell, and both are worth reading: Georgina Howell’s 2006 book Queen of the Desert and Janet Wallach’s 1996 effort Desert Queen. Bell published several books documenting her travels and there are also several volumes of her letters, although they are hard to find in print. Original documents are housed at the Gertrude Bell Archive at the University of Newcastle, which has an online catalogue.
UPI facts
More than 2.2 million Indian tourists arrived in UAE in 2023
More than 3.5 million Indians reside in UAE
Indian tourists can make purchases in UAE using rupee accounts in India through QR-code-based UPI real-time payment systems
Indian residents in UAE can use their non-resident NRO and NRE accounts held in Indian banks linked to a UAE mobile number for UPI transactions
The biog
Name: Younis Al Balooshi
Nationality: Emirati
Education: Doctorate degree in forensic medicine at the University of Bonn
Hobbies: Drawing and reading books about graphic design
