Kerber rallies hard to defeat Mladenovic in first match as No.
German will meet Kvitova in third-round at Wuhan Open
Angelique Kerber survived a scare in her first match as world No. 1 before beating Kristina Mladenovic in three sets at the Wuhan Open on yesterday.
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 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.
Kvitova said she would be trying not to think about Kerber’s new status as world number one, formalised when the rankings were updated after this month’s US Open, when they play on Wednesday.
“(It) will be for the first time ... that I will play her as a No. 1, which is a little bit different. But I think if I’m on the court, I don’t really think about that,”
she told reporters. World number four Agnieszka Radwanska also romped into the third round, as last year’s US Open finalist Roberta Vinci became the tournament’s first seeded casualty.
One-time Wimbledon runner-up Radwanska won 6-4, 6-1 against Russia’s Ekaterina Makarova, who bagged Olympic women’s doubles gold last month in Rio.