Taiwan’s Lu Yen-hsun and Hsieh Su-wei both fell at the first hurdle of the ATP-WTA Aegon International yesterday, with Lu losing 6-2, 6-4 to Julien Benneteau of France and Hsieh crashing 6-3, 6-3 to Italy’s Flavia Pennetta.
In yesterday’s other women’s singles first-round matches Varvara Lepchenko of the US overcame China’s Zhang Shuai 5-7, 6-4, 6-1, Slovakian Daniela Hantuchova beat Roberta Vinci of Italy 7-5, 6-1, and home crowd favorite Johanna Konta progressed by defeating Belinda Bencic of Switzerland 6-3, 6-2.
Also succumbing to a first-round defeat a day earlier was former champion Agnieszka Radwanska, who exited the WTA-ATP event in round one for the third straight year after she was beaten 6-4, 3-6, 7-6 (7/4) by Russia’s Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova.
Photo: AFP
Top seed Radwanska of Poland, who won at Devonshire Park in 2008, again failed to gain traction on the south coast lawns and goes into next week’s Wimbledon start well short of match practice.
By contrast, German fifth seed Angelique Kerber got off to a winning start on a chilly, dry day at the southern England venue where the usual bothersome winds were calm.
The 2012 finalist beat the US’ Alison Riske 7-6 (8/6), 6-4, joining Elena Vesnina of Russia in the second round after Vesnina upset China’s Peng Shuai 6-3, 6-4.
Photo: AFP
Radwanska came to Britain without a title so far this year and fresh from a third-round defeat at Roland Garros.
The Pole had won four of her five previous meetings with the 26th-ranked Pavlyuchenkova.
The Russian spent almost two-and-a-half hours compiling her upset win, firing nine aces and 41 winners while breaking four times from eight chances.
Radwanska took the final set into a tie-break, trailing her Russian opponent 1-3 and 3-5.
Eighth seed Caroline Wozniacki, the 2009 champion, also made it to the next round after recovering from deficits in both sets to beat Australian Samantha Stosur 7-5, 6-4.
In other women’s singles matches, Sloane Stephens beat Caroline Garcia of France 6-2, 6-4, while Alize Cornet of France beat Serb Bojana Jovanovski 6-3, 6-2.
In the men’s draw, Frenchman Edouard Roger-Vasselin downed Russia’s Andrey Kuznetsov 6-3, 6-4, to join two of his compatriots in the second round.
France’s Jeremy Chardy upset fifth seed Ivo Karlovic 6-4, 6-4 on Monday, while last year’s finalist Gilles Simon — the No. 6 seed — beat Australian qualifier Chris Guccione7-6 (7/2), 6-4.
In other clashes, Slovakia’s Martin Klizan knocked out Argentine eighth seed Federico Delbonis 6-4, 6-4, while Australian Bernard Tomic ignored distractions from an adjacent court to line up a second-round meeting with top seed Richard Gasquet after crushing Andrey Golubev by the same scoreline.
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