In 2018, the women’s tournament at the Australian Open was a gold mine of fantastic matches. The standout among standouts was the semifinal between Angelique Kerber and Simona Halep. Seeded 21st and first respectively, they delivered one of the matches of the year. On multiple occasions in the third set, it took several incredible shots to bring a rally to an end; normal patterns or winners often weren’t enough to subdue the opponent. In the first game of the final frame, a dazzling point was played in which both players’ effort to keep the ball in play was palpable, a point that by all rights should have ended several times before it actually did.

Halep served first in the third set, and at 30-all Kerber belted a towering forehand winner down the line to reach break point. It was on the next point that an already absorbing match was lifted to new heights (the point begins at 5:54 of this video).

Halep, standing on the ad side of the court with her left foot about halfway between the left sideline and the center of the court (farther away from the middle than the usual position a player would serve from), began the point with a wide serve. The serve, recorded at 164 km/h (or about 102 mph), was a somewhat safe first delivery: it was deep, landing very close to the service line, but wasn’t close to where the sideline and service line intersected. It was a serve not designed to win the point by itself, but was intended to put Halep in an advantageous position while maintaining a high likelihood of landing in the ad side service box.

Kerber, a lefty, took a couple shuffle-steps backwards just before the right-handed Halep struck the serve. Though there was no way for her to know that the serve would be quite deep, the move gave her a fraction of a second more to line up her return. She struck a crosscourt forehand return that landed midway between the service line and the baseline. Halep had stationed herself one or two steps to the left of the centerline, anticipating the return, and barely had to move for her next shot.

She powered the ball back deep with her solid two-handed backhand, beginning a crosscourt pattern. The shot was a heavy one — Kerber reached it without difficulty, but her next forehand landed noticeably shorter than her return had. Halep had won the first battle over court position. Kerber’s forehand didn’t pose a threat to end the point or even to take control of it, and Halep maintained her spot to the left of the centerline, clocking another deep crosscourt backhand.

Kerber, like Halep, was “cheating” slightly, recovering to a spot on the left side of the court in anticipation for Halep’s next crosscourt backhand. But she was recovering closer to the center than her opponent, meaning that while better prepared to respond to a change in direction than Halep, she had to travel farther to reach the crosscourt backhands. Cheating often pays off, as crosscourt shots are typically higher-percentage than down-the-line shots. Though Halep was allowing her position to be exposed by a forehand down the line, Kerber didn’t take the risk of aggressively breaking the pattern. She did, however, hit her next shot to Halep’s forehand, though the change of direction was more a product of being rushed by Halep’s depth, and her forehand was quite central.

Now in the ascendancy as the aggressor in the rally, Halep stepped forward and fired a crosscourt forehand. After doing so, she moved slightly to the right of the centerline, predicting a high-percentage crosscourt backhand reply. Kerber’s gambit of recovering close to the middle paid dividends; she didn’t have to travel far to reach Halep’s forehand, which while aggressive, wasn’t at all close to the sideline.

From well behind the baseline, Kerber struck a crosscourt backhand that landed very deep on Halep’s side of the court. Clearly expecting a shorter reply, Halep backpedaled quickly before looping back a forehand, and in doing so lost her advantageous stance in the rally. Her forehand, while relatively deep, had far more air under it than her previous shot, and thereby gave Kerber more time to line up her next stroke. Kerber’s strong crosscourt backhand had morphed her defensive position into an offensive position.

Kerber crashed an inside-out forehand into Halep’s forehand corner, beginning to pin her opponent into that area of the court. Halep floated back another defensive crosscourt forehand, again with some loop on it. Kerber cut a drop shot in response — it wasn’t disguised very well, but then it didn’t have to be — she had set up the shot beautifully, pushing Halep deep into her forehand corner, then slicing the drop shot short on the ad side to ensure Halep’s path to the ball was as long as possible. Kerber then crept forward, stationing herself just inside the baseline.

Halep’s defense is in the upper echelon of the WTA, and she sprinted from behind the baseline up to the net, taking one hand off the racket and slicing a short angled backhand. Such a reply is a common way to deal with a drop shot, as players will often rush the net behind a dropper, and the short sliced shot is an effective pass that can be hit with the ball quite close to the ground. Kerber wisely stayed back after hitting the drop shot, then raced forward to reach Halep’s dink.

Both players were at the net briefly, but Halep tore back to the deuce corner of the baseline at a diagonal angle, anticipating Kerber’s next shot, a scooped forehand down the line. Halep, running backwards towards the baseline, hit an awkward forehand lob while facing the right side wall of the court. This exchange sent both players well outside the lines of the singles court. Halep had run about ten feet past the white block letters reading “Melbourne”, so in other words around twenty feet behind the baseline. Kerber’s effort to reach her opponent’s dink sent her running well past the doubles alley.

Kerber got in position to put away the lob, and took a full-blooded swing with her backhand at the floating ball. Her placement left much to be desired; she powered an inside-in swing volley to Halep’s forehand corner when an inside-out effort likely would have been gone untouched for a winner. As it was, Kerber’s shot bounced just in front of the service line, and Halep, from way behind the baseline, didn’t have to move laterally at all. Rather, she sprinted forward to prevent the ball from bouncing twice. Kerber’s swing volley, which was likely intended to fly past Halep for a winner, had turned into an accidental drop shot.

On the stretch, Halep flung another forehand lob into the sky, but this one was far better than the first. It landed almost flush on the baseline; Kerber initially tried to set up for an overhead, but quickly realized that the lob was too deep, and instead ran back to the baseline, hitting a remarkable backhand under the circumstances. It was nearly as deep as Halep’s lob, and obliged Halep to backpedal back to the “Melbourne” sign. Incredibly, she hit a third consecutive lob — and each had been hit differently. This last was lifted over the net almost languidly, and was the beginning of the end for Halep in the rally.

The lob was short, falling between the service line and the net, and this enabled Kerber to step closer to the baseline with Halep’s shoes still treading on the white block letters that matched the lines. She whacked an inside-out forehand with moderate depth and pace: a shot almost identical to the one that had preceded her drop shot. Halep fired back a solid forehand down the middle, but then made her losing mistake.

Having struck the forehand while several feet to the right of court’s center, Halep inexplicably and palpably paused before recovering to the middle. Kerber seized the moment, lashing an angled crosscourt forehand that landed a great distance away from Halep and began to tail farther away from her. Halep, way out of position, sprinted desperately towards the ball, again taking a hand off the racket in an attempt to shovel another shot over the net, but her instant of hesitation had doomed her. She got to the ball, but her one-handed backhand chip fluttered into the top of the net.

Kerber clenched her fist, turning to face her box before bending over slightly as if to catch her breath, or perhaps to vomit. She straightened almost immediately, though. She would have to win a minimum of five more games to advance to the final.

Halep looked at her box as well, appearing to expel words of frustration. She had played a near-flawless point, being thwarted not by an errant groundstroke, but by waiting a split-second too long to recover to the center of the court.

The rally was 22 shots long, including the serve. Strokes were directed to all corners of the court, sending both players scampering past the lines. It was one of the finest points of the tournament, in a match that was likely the finest of the tournament.

Halep went on to break back in the next game, eventually winning an attritional, back-and-forth, and dazzling third set 9-7. Many twists and turns took place after the incredible break point early in the decider; most notably, both players saved a pair of match points, each striking a winner under the heaviest of pressure. More gasp-evoking rallies were contested, including Kerber claiming a hard-hitting exchange with a fiercely angled backhand winner, after which she fell to her knees.

The match was as memorable for Kerber clipping a bold backhand winner down the line while match point down after missing an almost identical shot on the previous point, or for Halep’s incredible defense extending points almost beyond belief, as it was for the rally on break point in the first game of the third set. While the compilation of shots in that rally was an illustration of how a spectacular point can be constructed, the ability of both players to sustain that quality was an illustration of how a tennis match can become legendary.

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