Taiwan’s Chang Kai-chen began the New Year with a victory in qualifying at the Shenzhen Open yesterday, advancing to a first-round clash today with Switzerland’s Viktorija Golubic.
The Taoyuan-born world No. 131 advanced to the main draw at the WTA Tour tournament with a 6-2, 6-4 victory over world No. 164 Anastasia Pivovarova in 1 hour, 17 minutes.
Chang saved one of four break points and converted six of 13, winning 65 of the 121 points contested to level her career record against the Russian to 1-1 after she was thrashed 6-1, 6-0 in their only previous meeting in Seoul in 2008.
The Taiwanese 25-year-old faces a tougher challenge against Swiss world No. 57 Golubic today as she looks to start the year with back-to-back victories.
In first-round matches, eighth seed Alison Riske of the US, who was the losing finalist in Shenzhen last year, battled to a 7-6 (7/5), 7-6 (7/5) victory over Chinese wild-card Zhu Lin.
“It was a really tough match for me — I felt a lot of different feelings during the entirety of the match,” Riske told the WTA Web site. “I was very focused. She was really good and that combination made for a really tough match. Even if I wasn’t nervous it was always going to be very tough because it’s the first match of the year... but all credit to her for playing a great match.”
Also advancing to the second round were seventh seed Monica Niculescu, fellow Romanian Sorana Cirstea, Tsvetana Pironkva of Bulgaria and Wang Qiang of China.
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