Caroline Wozniacki and Maria Sharapova were locked in a marathon duel in the opening white group round-robin match at the WTA Finals in Singapore at press time last night.
Danish world No. 8 Wozniacki won the first set in a tiebreak 7-6 (7/4), but Russian world No. 2 Sharapova bounced back to claim the second, also in a tiebreak, 7-6 (7/5) after 2 hours, 36 minutes on Centre Court.
World No. 3 Petra Kvitova of the Czech Republic was due to face sixth-ranked Agnieszka Radwanska of Poland in the white group following the Wozniacki-Sharapova duel.
Photo: AFP
A day earlier, Eugenie Bouchard took comfort in her rise to a Canadian-record No. 5 in the world after she opened her WTA Finals campaign with a disappointing round-robin defeat on Monday.
The 20-year-old went down 6-2, 6-3 to Romania’s Simona Halep, hours after reaching the highest ranking achieved by any Canadian player, man or woman.
“I didn’t know about it actually until about an hour before the match. Someone told me and I was like: ‘Oh my God. Really? This is so weird,’” Bouchard said.
Photo: AFP
“Yeah, it’s really cool. Doesn’t feel super, [it’s] not like there is anything to celebrate. I lost, so I was just like: ‘OK, I just want to keep moving forward’ It’s always a cool thing move up in the rankings,” she said.
Bouchard’s rise comes after a breakthrough year in which she made the Wimbledon final, the French and Australian Open semi-finals and won her first WTA Tour title, but her debut in the eight-player season finale proved tough as she committed 30 unforced errors and was broken four times by world No. 4 Halep.
“Usually we lose and we’re ready to get out of the city and go to the next tournament,” Bouchard said.
“I have to practice tomorrow, so it’s definitely a weird situation, but it’s kind of like we have a few lives here this week,” she said.
Taiwan’s Hsieh Su-wei and Peng Shuai of China begin their campaign in the doubles competition today with a quarter-final against Spanish duo Garbine Muguruza and Carla Suarez Navarro.
Unlike the singles competition, the doubles is a straight knockout.
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