PARIS — Simona Halep’s loss at the French Open on Wednesday was a delayed aftershock.
Halep, a finalist at Roland Garros last year, fell, 7-5, 6-1, to 70th-ranked Mirjana Lucic-Baroni, the player who stunned Halep in similar fashion in the third round of the United States Open last year.
Halep, the No. 3 seed, received medical attention to her right ring finger late in the first set, but seemed to struggle more with her tactics and resilience, keeping the ball comfortably in Lucic-Baroni’s strike zone in the middle of the court and allowing her to tee off.