Andreescu drops WTA Finals match to Halep
Canadian champ has trouble putting away her opponent
HONG KONG Elina Svitolina made a winning start to her WTA Finals defence in Shenzhen on Monday when the Ukrainian defeated Karolina Pliskova in straight sets, while Wimbledon champion Simona Halep saved a match point to beat Canada’s Bianca Andreescu.
Halep showed all her fighting qualities to come back from a set down to claim a 3-6, 7-6 (6), 6-3 win over U.S. Open champion Andreescu, saving a match point in the process.
Andreescu had her older opponent on the ropes throughout the first set, including forcing Halep to fight back from 0-40 down to save her own serve in the fifth game, before winning the last four games to take the lead.
Both players struggled to hold serve throughout the second set and Halep saved a match point in her final service game before forcing a tiebreaker.
Halep prevailed to send the match into a deciding set, which featured five breaks of serve before the Romanian closed out the match after two hours, 34 minutes.
“It was a very tough match,” Halep said. “I knew that she’s a great player and that she’s playing until the end, without giving up so I had to fight.”
Svitolina secured a 7-6 (12), 6-4 win over the former world No. 1 to top the standings in the Purple Group in the round robin phase of the competition, with Halep joining her following her victory over Andreescu.
“I was just trying to be ready for her big serves and then try to take on the second serves, I just tried to move very quickly and react quick,” Svitolina said at the Shenzhen Bay Sports Center.
“The surface is a little bit slow, so I had a little bit more time and I think it benefited a little bit my returns.”
Svitolina conceded a break on her own serve in the opening game and was trailing but, after picking up three straight games to restore parity, she then ground her opponent down in the tiebreaker and clinched the first set.
The second set was almost as keenly fought, with Svitolina picking up the opening two games as she maintained her momentum.
Pliskova, however, won three straight games to ensure matters were back on serve before Svitolina claimed another break in the seventh when her opponent sent her attempt long from behind the baseline.
Milos Raonic and Marin Cilic booked their spots in the Paris Masters second round on Monday, while Roger Federer pulled out of the tournament with next month’s ATP Finals on the horizon.
Big-serving Canadian Raonic capitalized on fast court conditions to outclass Britain’s Cameron Norrie 6-3, 6-2 in just more than an hour at the AccorHotels Arena.
A back injury has limited Raonic to three matches since the Rogers Cup in August, but the 2014 Paris runner-up was back to full strength as he struck 14 aces in a masterful display.
Raonic will next face newly-crowned Vienna Open champion Dominic Thiem.
Cilic eased past Hubert Hurkacz of Poland 7-6 (5), 6-4 to set up a second round meeting with threetime Grand Slam champion Stan Wawrinka. The 2014 U.S. Open champion dictated the contest with power and precision as he won 86 per cent of his first-serve points to seal his third consecutive victory over Hurkacz in less than two years.
Meanwhile, world No. 3 Federer pulled out of the tournament as he fine tunes his schedule heading into the season-ending ATP Finals.
The 38-year-old Swiss lifted a record-extending 10th Swiss Indoors championship title in his hometown of Basel on Sunday and has decided not to play back-to-back weeks at this stage of the season.
Federer, Novak Djokovic, Rafa Nadal, Daniil Medvedev, Thiem and Stefanos Tsitsipas have booked their places for next month’s ATP Finals, with the Paris Masters set to determine who clinches the final two spots for the London tournament.
Italian Andreas Seppi has replaced Federer as a lucky loser in the Paris main draw and will meet Moldova’s Radu Albot in the second round.