Kerber survives scare in first tie as number one
2 Wins for Shvedova against Vinci this year
wuhan — Angelique Kerber survived a scare in her first match as world number one while French Open champion Garbine Muguruza crashed out in Wuhan on Tuesday.
The US and Australian Open champion, who had a bye in the first round, made a convincing start before missing two set points and allowing Kristina Mladenovic to take the first set in a tie break. But the German then swept through the rest of the match, winning 6-7 (4/7), 6-1, 6-4 to set up a third-round meeting with two-time Wimbledon champion Petra Kvitova.
“I was trying to find my rhythm because I was not playing my best in the first set,” top seed Kerber said after the match.
Meanwhile, Muguruza just couldn’t master former world number one Jelena Jankovic, pushing her to a tie break in the second set but still coming up short at 6-4, 7-6 (7/2). “I felt like I was in control of the match, but the last shot was not there. I made maybe too many mistakes against Jankovic,” she told reporters.
The Spaniard bagged her first Grand Slam title at Roland Garros this year and rose to a career-high ranking of two, but the early round loss at Wuhan puts her qualification for the eight-player WTA Finals in Singapore in doubt.
Muguruza was the second seeded casualty of the day after last year’s US Open finalist Roberta Vinci fell to Yaroslava Shvedova 7-5, 6-2 — her second defeat at the hands of the Kazakh this year.
Briton Johanna Konta had a tough battle to oust home crowd favourite Zhang Shuai in two sets, 6-3, 6-3, while world number four Agnieszka Radwanska romped into the third round when she downed Russia’s Ekaterina Makarova.
Radwanska will next meet an inform Caroline Wozniacki, who defeated qualifier Kateraina Siniakova 6-4, 6-4 on Tuesday, in the third round of the $2.6 million hardcourt event. The former world number one beat Poland’s Radwanska in the semi-finals of last week’s Pan Pacific Open in Tokyo, en route to her first title of the year.
Seven-time Grand Slam champion Venus Williams downed Yulia Putintseva of Kazakhstan 6-3, 6-2, and will next play fellow tour veteran 10th-ranked Svetlana Kuznetsova of Russia. The pair have not met on court since 2009.
American Madison Brengle fell to Kuznetsova 6-0, 6-4 in the second round, as eighth seed Madison Keys beat Caroline Garcia 6-3, 6-4. Former Wimbledon quarter-finalist Barbora Strycova downed Japan’s Misaki Doi, while Daria Kasatkina of Russia beat fellow qualifier American Louisa Chirico.