Osaka in China Open third round

BEIJING: Naomi Osaka is keen to move on from the “bittersweet” memories of last month’s US Open triumph and she did just that with a ruthless display at the China Open on Tuesday.

The Japanese thrashed unseeded American Danielle Collins 6-1, 6-0 in 53 minutes on Beijing’s outside hard courts to saunter into Round 3.

The 20-year-old, whose maiden Grand Slam was overshadowed by Serena Williams’s row with the chair umpire in New York, faces 10th seed Julia Goerges next.

Osaka’s reputation is growing fast and organisers on Tuesday said that she has booked her place in the season-ending WTA Finals in Singapore for the first time.

CILIC BUNDLED OUT

TOKYO: Top seed Marin Cilic crashed out of the Japan Open in a shock 3-6, 6-4, 7-6(1) defeat to Germany’s Jan-lennard Struff in the first round on Tuesday.

The former US Open champion looked to be in complete control after pocketing the first set with a brutal drive volley but things quickly unravelled for the Croatian when Struff suddenly caught fire.

After Struff, ranked a whopping 50 places below Cilic at 56, had levelled the match, normal service appeared to have resumed in the deciding set.cilic broke for 3-2 with a peach of a backhand that dipped viciously onto Struff’s toes, but the German struck back — not once but twice — to force a tiebreak. Struff smashed the breaker, snaffling it 7-1 with his ninth ace to complete the upset after two hours and 18 minutes.

HALEP SUFFERS

WUHAN: World No 1 Simona Halep’s participation in this month’s WTA Finals was thrown into doubt after a scan on Tuesday revealed she had suffered a herniated disc in her back.

French Open champion Halep was injured while training at last week’s Wuhan Open, where she lost in Round 2 to Slovakia’s Dominika Cibulkova.