Osaka, Barty start off with wins
NAOMI Osaka and Ashleigh Barty both won three-set matches at the WTA Finals yesterday in a gruelling opening day of the US$14-million round-robin tournament.
Barty joined the Japanese sensation at the top of Red Group with a 5-7, 6-1, 6-2 victory over Belinda Bencic in 1 hour and 56 minutes. The result secured the yearend No. 1 ranking for the Australian.
In-form Osaka outlasted Petra Kvitova 7-6 (1), 4-6, 6-4 in 2 hours and 39 minutes to notch her first victory at the WTA Finals after a winless campaign in her debut appearance last year. She stretched her current winning streak to 11 matches having claimed titles in Osaka and Beijing.
In a rematch of this year’s tense Australian Open final, world No. 6 Kvitova came out with intent until she stuttered in the eighth game of the opening set with three double faults to squander the game.
Osaka held off two break points in the ninth game before dominating the tiebreak to draw first blood.
It seemed to shake the Czech’s confidence but Kvitova, at 29 the oldest player in the draw, impressively clawed back in the second set and took advantage of an error-strewn Osaka, who several times slammed her racquet in frustration.
A refocused Osaka put the foot down in the deciding set but could not convert two match points in the eighth game before finally closing it out in the 10th.
“It definitely feels good to win,” Osaka told reporters.
“I didn’t play well in the (WTA) Finals last year, so I’m kind of just trying to redeem myself a little bit in that sense.” Kvitova rued her wayward serving. “I just wanted to have a good second serve. Sometimes it didn’t really pay off as I wished,” she said.
In the later match, Barty came back from a torrid first set marred by 20 unforced errors and being unable to crack Bencic’s confident serve.
The French Open champion rediscovered her consistency with a blistering second set, breaking the world No. 7 twice and levelling the match with an ace.
Bencic received medical treatment on her left heel after the second set, but seemed hampered for the remainder of the one-sided match.
Bencic had leapfrogged Serena Williams and secured the last ticket to Shenzhen after claiming the title in Moscow last week.
“To play against the best of the best, every match is high quality and it’s about coming out here and bringing the best each time,” Barty said after the match.
The Purple Group starts today with world No. 2 Karolina Pliskova playing defending champion Elina Svitolina, while US Open champion Bianca Andreescu takes on Wimbledon winner Simona Halep.
The top two players in each group advance to the semifinals on Saturday.
The event’s move to the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen, after a five-year run in Singapore, is highlighted by a record prize pool in tennis with the winner receiving up to US$4.725 million.
In Zhuhai, also in Guangdong Province, Aryna Sabalenka won her third singles title of the year — all in China — with a straight-sets victory over top seed Kiki Bertens in the Elite Trophy Zhuhai final yesterday.
The 21-year-old from Belarus eased to a 6-4, 6-2 victory over the Dutchwoman to end her singles season on a high.
Ranked 14th in the world, the hard-hitting Sabalenka appears to enjoy playing in China.
Her other two titles of 2019 came at Wuhan in September — when she defeated Bertens in the last 16 — and in Shenzhen at the start of the year.
Sabalenka will compete in the coming week in doubles with the Belgian Elise Mertens at the WTA Finals.
Zhuhai was Sabalenka’s fifth career WTA singles crown and the Belarusian said she was running out of space at home for her growing collection of silverware. “I think we actually need to create a new room for the trophies,” said Sabalenka.
Bertens, 10th in the world, was also rushing off to Shenzhen because she is a reserve there.
(AFP)