Eugenie Bouchard retired in tears and Jo-Wilfried Tsonga suffered dizzy spells before crashing to his worst defeat of the year in an incident-packed China Open first round yesterday.
Bouchard lasted just 10 games against Andrea Petkovic before having her blood pressure checked and exiting in Beijing, with the scoreline standing 6-2, 1-1 to her opponent.
Tsonga refused to blame Beijing’s notorious air pollution as he was hit by dizzy spells before falling at the first hurdle 7-6 (7-4), 6-2 to little-known Austrian Andreas Haider-Maurer.
In the first round of the doubles, Taiwanese sisters Chan Hao-ching and Chan Yung-jan claimed a hard-fought 7-6 (7-5), 2-6, 10-7 victory over wild-cards Alize Cornet of France and Magda Linette of Poland in 1 hour, 41 minutes.
The win, which should see the sixth seeds move into eighth place in next week’s WTA Tour Road To Singapore rankings, good enough for a spot in the WTA Finals later this month, set up a second-round clash with German pairing Mona Barthel and Anna-Lena Groenefeld.
It was not such good news for Taiwanese duo Chuang Chia-jung and Hsieh Su-wei, who crashed to a 2-6, 7-5, 10-8 defeat to fifth seeds Caroline Garcia of France and Katarina Srebotnik of Slovenia.
RAKUTEN JAPAN OPEN
Defending champion Kei Nishikori of Japan was given a real scare by teen ace Borna Coric of Croatia yesterday before sealing a 2-6, 6-1, 6-2 comeback win in the first round of the Rakuten Japan Open.
Nishikori next faces the big-serving Sam Querrey, of the US, who defeated the 35th-ranked Alexandr Dolgopolov of Ukraine 7-6 (7-5), 6-4.
The 127th-ranked Tatsuma Ito won the battle of the Japanese wild-cards against the 148th-ranked Yoshihito Nishioka, 3-6, 6-0, 7-5.
Ito’s second-round opponent is to be either top-seeded Stan Wawrinka of Switzerland or the veteran 121st-ranked Radek Stepanek of the Czech Republic.
SHENZHEN OPEN
Top-seeded Tomas Berdych won his 11th ATP Tour title by defeating Guillermo Garcia-Lopez 6-3, 7-6 (9-7) yesterday in the Shenzhen Open final.
Rain on Sunday had postponed the final for a day and after another rain interruption on Monday, Berdych finally clinched the title.
Additional reporting by staff writer
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