Top seed Dinara Safina imploded at the China Open yesterday, losing to an unheralded Chinese player and opening the door for Serena Williams to reclaim the world No. 1 ranking from the Russian.
Third seed Venus Williams also crashed out of the tournament, losing for the second week in a row to talented Russian teen Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova, leaving the women’s draw in Beijing in disarray.
On the men’s side, Serbia’s Novak Djokovic, the No. 2 seed, dropped his serve once early against Romania’s Victor Hanescu, but worked out his jitters to take the match in straight sets 6-3, 7-5.
PHOTO: REUTERS
China’s Zhang Shuai, 20 years old and ranked 226th in the world, thrilled the partisan crowd on center court at the Olympic tennis venue by pulling off the second-round win over the raven-haired Safina 7-5, 7-6 (7/5).
Safina struggled with her serve throughout the match, with a total of 13 double-faults.
After dropping the first set, the 23-year-old Russian — slamming balls and screaming in frustration — could not settle down in the second, repeatedly failing to consolidate her breaks of Zhang’s serve by surrendering her own.
Zhang served for the match at 5-4, but Safina battled back to 5-5 and then into a tie-break. Zhang won the battle of wills, closing it out with a winner down the line, to the roar of the crowd.
Serena Williams needs only to have a better result than Safina to claim the No. 1 ranking.
As for Venus, she was looking to avenge her loss to Pavlyuchenkova at last week’s Pan Pacific Open in Tokyo, but she never found her rhythm against the 18-year-old Russian, who won 3-6, 6-1, 6-4.
The American eked out the first set, but Pavlyuchenkova, the world No. 39, remained undaunted, breaking Venus Williams to go up 3-1 in the second set and cruising to force the third-set decider.
She again broke Venus Williams in the first game of the third set and started to dictate play, with the seven-time Grand Slam winner failing to find her range, spraying ground strokes both into the net and beyond the baseline.
The Russian, serving for the match at 5-2, double-faulting to lose the game at love. Venus Williams held her serve, but Pavlyuchenkova steadied herself to seal the win with a forehand winner.
Men’s world No. 4 Djokovic earned some easy points with 10 aces in his win over Hanescu, the world No. 27, but said he hoped to find a better rhythm before his next match.
In other first-round action, eighth seed Marin Cilic of Croatia beat Russia’s Igor Andreev, 6-4, 6-4, and Germany’s Philipp Kohlschreiber defeated Ivo Karlovic 7-6 (8/6), 4-6, 6-1, despite the big-serving Croat’s 27 aces.
On the women’s side of the draw, sixth seed Svetlana Kuznetsova of Russia easily advanced into the round of 16, beating Spain’s Anabel Medina Garrigues, 6-2, 6-1.
■JAPAN OPEN
AFP, TOKYO
Former world junior No. 1 Gael Monfils fired down 15 aces in two sets to beat Marsel Ilhan of Turkey in the first round at the Japan Open yesterday. The French fourth seed, playing in Tokyo for the first time, got off to a flying start with a three consecutive aces in the opening game before scoring a 6-2, 6-4 victory.
Earlier in the day, Beijing Olympic doubles gold medalist Stanislas Wawrinka of Switzerland also made a winning debut beating serve-and-volleyer John Isner of the US 6-4, 6-4.
In the second round, Wawrinka will play Simon Greul of Germany, winner over Martin Vassallo Arguello of Argentina 4-6, 6-4, 6-2. Monfils will take on Marco Chiudinelli of Switzerland, who rallied to beat Dudi Sela of Israel 4-6, 6-1, 6-4.
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