Halep shows the style to storm Wimbledon

Birmingham

Simona Halep, who revealed herself as a serious Wimbledon challenger last year, suggested she may be even more dangerous than that this time around after an impressive start to her grass court campaign.

The top-seeded Romanian hit the ball as sweetly as if she were born to the sport's natural surface, overcoming Naomi Broady, the British wild card entry, 6-4, 6-2 to reach the third round of the Wimbledon warm-up event.

Halep's ground-stroking skills were remarkably forceful given how rarely she competes on this surface, and after breaking serve with perfect timing to reach 5-4, served out for the first set and tore through the second.

Halep will next play either Caroline Garcia, the 16th seeded Spaniard, or Klara Koukalova, a Czech qualifier, and if she wins again could have a tasty revenge opportunity in the quarter-finals against Eugenie Bouchard, the Canadian who denied her a place in the Wimbledon final last year.

Earlier, the former world number one Victoria Azarenka said she still dreams of winning Wimbledon, despite revealing some of the frustrations and uncertainties she has suffered in the last couple of years during an up-and-down opener.

Repeated injuries have prevented Azarenka from winning a title for 22 months, and she was five times within a point of going 0-5 down against Vavara Lepchenko, an American ranked outside the top 30, before fighting back, with a mixture of fierce hitting and varying confidence, to win 7-6(9-7), 6-4.

Azarenka started to serve commandingly and successfully take risks with ground stroke attacks whilst whittling away that big leeway. But she still needed to save a set point at 6-7 in the tie-break, and recover from the disappointment of losing her service break in the second set before prevailing.

She next plays Zarina Diyas, the world number 34 from Kazakhstan, and could have a quarter-final with Karolina Pliskova, the impressively rising world number 12 from the Czech Republic.

Earlier, another former world number one Jelena Jankovic also made a winning start. The Serbian is another making her way back from injuries but looked comfortable as she overcame Tereza Smitkova, the world number 62 from the Czech Republic, 6-4, 6-4.