In the opening round of the 2022 WTA Citi Open on Monday, world number 16 Simona Halep will compete against 120th-ranked qualifier Cristina Bucsa.
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Halep’s 2022 Wimbledon semifinal loss against eventual champion Elena Rybakina came after a season in which it appeared she might win another Grand Slam championship. The 2019 Wimbledon champion would have been disappointed to lose, but a semifinal performance as someone who struggled last season will do her confidence the world of good. Simona Halep also appears to be on the rise considering her recent results, even though she isn’t currently ranked among the top ten. Halep has won 31 of her 40 matches this year while only losing nine of them. This includes a title triumph earlier this year on Melbourne’s hard court surfaces. The former world number one, who is presently ranked 13th in the list of players predicted to make it to the WTA Finals for the season, seems like a top-10 contender after a few more months of playing like this.
Bucsa is now rated 120th in the world, which is a career high. She advanced to the main draw here after putting up a strong performance in the local qualifications, where she will try to build on her two season victories. In the preliminaries, where she won both matches in three sets against Kimberly Birrell and Caty McNally, Cristina Bucsa has already advanced to the main event. Her overall win-loss record on hard court surfaces is 76-38, and she prefers them even at the entry level of tennis. It might get exponentially more difficult against Halep, who has been in such good shape, but Bucsa has the tenacity to contend.
Simona Halep and Cristina Bucsa will face each other in the first round of the 2022 Citi open on Monday, August 1. The WTA 500 competition is scheduled to start from August 1 and end on August 7 this year.
| Player | Seed |
| Jessica Pegula | 1 |
| Emma Raducanu | 2 |
| Simona Halep | 3 |
| Victoria Azarenka | 4 |
| Elise Mertens | 5 |
| Kaia Kanepi | 6 |
| Mayar Sherif | 7 |
| Clara Tauson | 8 |
The 2022 Citi Open will see six rounds of action excluding the qualifiers. These include the round of 64, round of 32, round of 16, quarter-finals, semi-finals and final. The tournament is scheduled to commence on August 1 and conclude on August 8 this year.
| Competition Stage | Date |
| Round of 64 | August 1 (Men’s) |
| Round of 32 | August 1 (Women’s), August 3 (Men’s) |
| Round of 16 | August 3 (Women), August 4 (Men’s) |
| Quarter-finals | August 5 (Women’s and Men’s) |
| Semi-finals | August 6 (Women’s and Men’s) |
