Former champion Li Na, the second-seeded Chinese superstar and Australian Open winner, was sensationally dumped out of the French Open in the first round on Tuesday, beaten by a tearful Kristina Mladenovic.
Li, the 2011 champion, went down 7-5, 3-6, 6-1 to the 103rd-ranked blonde Frenchwoman — the Roland Garros junior champion in 2009 — to suffer her first opening-round defeat in Paris in eight visits.
The 2 hours, 6 minutes loss on a windswept and chilly Suzanne Lenglen court saw Li undone by 37 unforced errors.
Photo: AFP
Mladenovic, who was Australian Open mixed-doubles champion this year with Daniel Nestor, is to go on to face Alison Riske of the US.
“It didn’t matter who I was playing today, I still would have lost. The problem was myself. I threw myself away,” Li said.
It is a familiar scenario for Li, who failed to get beyond the fourth round of the six Grand Slams which followed her 2011 Roland Garros breakthrough.
Mladenovic, who was No. 36 in the world in August last year, was in tears after her victory, her third over a top 10 player.
“It’s just incredible,” she said. “I don’t have the words to describe what just happened. To beat the world No. 2 in the first round at Roland Garros, it’s incredible.”
Li’s shock defeat means that both Australian Open champions have been knocked out in the first round, after Stan Wawrinka’s listless defeat on Monday.
Ex-world No. 1 Caroline Wozniacki, the 13th seeded Dane, lost 7-6 (7/5), 4-6, 6-2 to Belgium’s Yanina Wickmayer in her first outing since her romance with superstar golfer Rory McIlroy ended.
“I was not prepared for this, it all came as a bit of a shock. I want to thank everyone for their support and sweet messages. I have to move on from this,” Wozniacki said.
Also making an early exit was Bulgarian men’s 11th seed Grigor Dimitrov, who lost 6-4, 7-5, 7-6 (7/4) to giant Croat Ivo Karlovic.
Karlovic was not broken by Dimitrov, who won the Bucharest clay-court title this year and was a semi-finalist at the Rome Masters, having seen off the Croat on the way. The 35-year-old Karlovic is next to face Austria’s Andreas Haider-Maurer.
Spanish fifth seed David Ferrer, last year’s runner-up to Rafael Nadal, began his 12th Roland Garros by coasting past Igor Sijsling of the Netherlands 6-4, 6-3, 6-1.
Britain’s Andy Murray, the seventh-seeded Wimbledon champion who made the semi-finals in 2011, saw off Andrey Golubev of Kazakhstan 6-1, 6-4, 3-6, 6-3.
Murray is next to face Australia’s Marinko Matosevic, who beat Germany’s Dustin Brown 7-6 (7/5), 6-4, 6-7 (1/7), 7-5.
Former world No. 1 Lleyton Hewitt, now No. 46 in the world and playing his 14th Roland Garros, was beaten 3-6, 6-2, 6-1, 6-4 by unseeded Argentine Carlos Berlocq.
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