British-Taiwanese player Joanna Garland on Tuesday crashed out of the opening round of the Libema Open in the Netherlands, after fighting through two rounds of qualifiers.
Garland, who was already Taiwan’s highest-ranked women’s singles player at world No. 175 in May, shot up 28 spots in the rankings to world No. 147 as of Monday after she last month became the first Taiwanese to clinch a victory in a main singles draw of the French Open since 2020.
Garland, the 11th seed in qualifying, punched her way into the opening round of the grass-court tournament, with a 6-3, 6-2 victory over Russia’s Ekaterina Yashina on Saturday and a dominant 6-0, 6-3 win over Belarus’ Aliaksandra Sasnovich.
Photo: AFP
However, on Tuesday Garland struggled to keep up in a difficult matchup against Canada’s Bianca Andreescu, who won 6-1, 6-3 in 74 minutes.
Meanwhile, at Queen’s Club in London, Emma Raducanu had a comfortable 6-1, 6-2 win over Spain’s Cristina Bucsa, as top tier women’s tennis returned to Queen’s Club for the first time since 1973.
The home crowd had plenty to cheer for with Katie Boulter and Heather Watson also winning their first-round matches.
Photo: Reuters
“To have the women back here, it feels very special,” said Boulter, the current British No. 1.
On Monday, Taiwan’s Wu Fang-hsien and partner Jiang Xianyu of China crashed out of the opening round of women’s doubles, losing 6-4, 6-2 to the British duo of Raducanu and Boulter.
Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching and Veronika Kudermetova of Russia also lost a close opener, with Australia’s Storm Hunter and Desirae Krawczyk of the US winning 6-3, 3-6, 10-4.
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