Tuesday 30 January 2018

WTA Tour running day after AO ends

No rest for the wicked ! Just a day after the 2018 Australian Open closed down, the WTA Tour kicked off again. - in two continents.

Asia in Taipei City, Chinese Taipei - the Taiwan Open

Europe in St Petersburg, Russia - the St Petersburg Ladies Trophy

Unbelievably, Caroline Wozniacki is playing in Russia so soon after winning the Australian Open in such a mighty struggle.

She is heading a strong field as top seed. There are three other top ten players and three further in the top twenty.

The four top seeded competitors have first round byes, which must come as a relief to them all, especially Wozniacki.

First round results so far have seen:

Home nation wildcard Anastasia Potapova, ranked 235, upsetting Tatjana Maria 6-2 6-4.  

Her next test will be a little tougher - Caroline Wozniacki.

Alicia Cornet defeating Mona Barthel 6-3 7-5.

Alicia will play the winner of eighth seed Daria Kasatkina and qualifier Viktoria Kuzmova.

Katerina Siniakova defeating Donna Vekic in two hours 6-3 2-6 6-4.

Katerina meets the winner of Russian pair, sixth seed Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova and Ekaterina Makarova.

In Taipei City, the field is not as strong, the top seed Shuai Peng ranked 31, and only four of the worlds top 50 competing.

The tournament does boast a Grand Slam singles winner - 2011 US Open champion Samantha Stosur - and she will be hoping for better fortune than her Aus Open first round exit.

Results so far:

Zarina Diyas (6) defeated qualifier Anna Blinkova 6-2 7-5 and will next play Monica Niculescu who defeated Ons Jabeur 6-1 4-0 (retired)

Yulia Putintseva (5) defeated qualifier Junri Namigata 6-2 6-4 and will next play wildcard Kai-Chen Chang who defeated fellow wildcard Ya-Hsuan Lee 7-5 6-2.

Ying-Ying Duan defeated Miyu Kato 6-2 4-6 7-5 in over two and a half hours. She will next play Kateryna Kozlova who upset Shuai Zhang (2) 6-2 6-4.

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