Taiwanese No. 1 Hsieh Su-wei cruised into the second round of the Aegon Open on the grass courts in Nottingham, England, on Tuesday, while Caroline Wozniacki’s first match in more than two months also ended in victory.
World No. 72 Hsieh raced to a 6-2, 6-1 victory over world No. 81 Naomi Broady in just 53 minutes to improve her career record to 2-0 against the Briton after winning their only previous encounter in Nottingham in 2012.
The Taiwanese saved both break points she faced and converted five of six, winning 52 of the 82 points contested to advance to a second-round clash yesterday against Alison Riske of the US.
Photo: Reuters
“She has got a lot of confidence at the moment, I didn’t serve my best,” Broady told the Daily Mail. “It was my first match on grass, and my first game on clay ended in a similar scoreline and it got better after that. I can’t take a lot from it, there aren’t any positives to take from the game going forward, I just have to brush it off and get back on the practice courts.”
Wozniacki defeated Cagla Buyukakcay of Turkey 7-5, 6-3 in the first round.
The Dane rolled her right ankle while practicing for the Fed Cup in early April and she missed the European clay-court swing. She had last played in late March in Miami.
Photo: Reuters
“It’s just great to be back,” she said. “You feel a bit rusty out there, but at the same time it could have been a lot worse.”
It was worse for two other seeds: No. 5 Yanina Wickmayer of Belgium lost to Andrea Hlavackova of the Czech Republic 7-5, 7-6 (9/7) and No. 7 Mona Barthel of Germany fell to Riske 6-2, 6-1.
Hlavackova was a lucky loser from qualifying who was promoted late into the main draw.
It was a bad day for two of the British hopefuls, with Laura Robson losing 6-3, 7-5 to qualifier Michelle Larcher de Brito of Portugal and sixth seed Heather Watson bowing out as Magdalena Rybarikova of Slovakia came from a set down to win 4-6, 6-0, 6-4.
Eighth seed Monica Puig of Puerto Rico cruised to a 6-1, 6-1 win over Zhang Kai-lin of China.
Two other qualifiers also won their openers: Ashleigh Barty of Australia and Tara Moore of Britain, who was making her main draw debut on the WTA Tour.
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