Simona Halep arrived in the press conference room after her destructive 6-2 6-0 semifinal victory over Sam Stosur with a rare grin splattered across her face. The reason for this unfamiliar sight was quickly revealed, as the tournament communications staff ferried in a crate of clinking beers reserved by the Romanian for the journalists. Halep had jokingly promised journalists the beers after three Romanian players confusingly wound up in the quarterfinals of this alleged Premier Mandatory event, and there she was, a woman of strength and principles, coming good on her word.

One would only hope that she saved a few bottles for her fellow stars when she arrives in Rome, considering it was they who collectively plotted the most perfect route to the trophy for her at the moment in her career she needed it most.

After all, it was Maria Sharapova - still banned, still blazing her social media accounts with daily reminders that she is going nowhere - who paraded the celebrity-suffocated Met Gala whilst her colleagues prepared for their opening rounds. It was Serena, on the completely opposite side of the spectrum, who was understandably more concerned with making tacos, looking after her sponsorships, and making more tacos than attending an event that contributes nothing to her legacy. And it was Garbine Muguruza, Victoria Azarenka, Petra Kvitova, Angelique Kerber, Agnieszka Radwanska, and the rest who all lost early due to a variety of reasons ranging from injury and illness to generally terrible play.

In events like this, where top players find themselves surrounded solely by the journeywomen of the tour in the latter rounds of a draw, the analysis tends to present two distinctive avenues of reason. The first is to ignore all the surrounding noise and focus on the sole most important fact at hand:  the tournament champion. Halep has indeed played some very good tennis over the past week. As opposed to lemons, in the third round of the event she was handed the ripest, juiciest Spanish oranges, and throughout the week she proceeded to consistently produce the most perfect zumo de naranja natural.

Aside from the one bizarre bagel set conceded to Irina-Camelia Begu in their quarterfinal match, which she mainly appeared to concede in order to give herself time to properly seethe over the barking from her countryman’s coach, she has dominated her weak opposition precisely as a player of her ranking and stature should do. In the rest of her matches throughout the week, no player took more than the six games Cibulkova stole from her in the final, with five breadsticks and bagels dished out in total.

“I like more to play on clay,” Halep said after defeating Timea Bacsinszky. “I change the tactic. I played less power today and I just tried to mixed the game, to be more creative on court, and to open the court better, to play more on her forehand.”

One of the comforts of her returning to her favored clay is that the obligation to play aggressive, risky tennis is negated by the endless possibilities the clay presents. Throughout her rampage through the empty draw, she combined a perfect mix of the two. Against Cibulkova, Halep countered Cibulkova’s aggression and speed with perfect precision and angles, creating space and running the Slovak into the ground.

You can only defeat whom you face. In five years, the only relevant fact about this edition of the Madrid Open will be the champion. This is a fact that the photos of Aravane Rezai plastered around the grounds reinforce every day. Even though Rezai’s run to the Madrid title included an astonishing series of upsets over Justine Henin, Jelena Jankovic, and Venus Williams, her name and her face around the grounds draw only laughter.

The opposing camp insist that the weakened, derelict draw is something that cannot be ignored and has clearly been a driving force in Halep’s title run. Not a single human across the planet would look twice if any of the four quarterfinal matches were drawn in the first round of an international event. At a time when halves and quarters of WTA draws collapse in any given week with increasing frequency, this week raises the question of whether we will soon see entire draws imploding, as happened this week.

Throughout her journey to the second-biggest title of her career, Halep faced the world Nos. 43, 75, 15, 34, 23, and 38. Unimpressive is an understatement, and this is only compounded by the fact that her first Premier Mandatory title was captured under similar circumstances. The highest ranked player Halep has defeated en route to her three greatest achievements - two Premier Mandatory titles and a Roland Garros final - was the illustrious mental fortress that was world No. 13 Carla Suarez Navarro in Indian Wells last year.

The best guess is that both views are correct. Simona Halep has played brilliant tennis throughout the week, and she is the deserved winner. As she grinned and dropped assorted one-liners after her victory, it could be that this week offers the emotional breakthrough that has eluded her for over a year. Or else, there is every chance that navigating through an International field to capture a Premier Mandatory title is no more significant than that. With only two weeks until the French Open, it won’t take long to find out.