Bertens, Halep - New Haven withdrawals

More early results from the USA.  

Top seed Simona Halep withdrew from New Haven, a sensible personal decision, given her recent heavy workload - finals in successive Premier 5 tournaments, and the US Open just next week.

Still, not a good look when fans have bought tickets with the expectation of seeing the world number one in action.  Perhaps Simona should plan her schedule next year a little more carefully, and not enter three straight events immediately before Flushing Meadows.

The replacement for Halep in the New Haven main draw is lucky loser Belinda Bencic, who has the first round bye which Simona was originally granted.

ATP Winston-Salem:

First round

Lucky loser Guido Andreozzi defeated Marton Fucsovics 6-3 4-6 6-0

Ryan Harrison defeated wildcard Borna Gojo 6-2 6-4

Wildcard Taylor Fritz defeated Malek Jaziri 6-1 6-4

Taro Daniel defeated John Millman 6-4 7-6(7)

Tennys Sandgren defeated Ricardas Berankis 6-4 6-3

Qualifier Tommy Paul defeated Laslo Djere 6-3 7-6(4)

Jaume Munar defeated qualifier Brayden Schnur 7-6(5) 7-6(1)

Leonardo Mayer defeated Yuichi Sugita 6-3 7-6(4)

Matteo Berrettini defeated Julien Benneteau 6-3 6-3

Qualifier Horacio Zeballos defeated Lukas Lacko 7-6(3) 7-5

Lucky loser Franko Skugor defeated Pierre-Hugues Herbert 6-2 6-3

Second round

Jan-Lennard Struff defeated Marco Cecchinato (4) 6-3 6-4

Nicolas Jarry (14) defeated Andreas Seppi 6-4 6-3

WTA New Haven:

First round 

Qualifier Camila Giorgi defeated fellow qualifier Ana Bogdan 6-3 6-2

Aryna Sabalenka defeated lucky loser Samantha Stosur 6-3 6-2

Ekaterina Makarova, in the biggest upset yet, defeated wildcard Karolina Pliskova (4) 6-1 6-3

Qualifier Dayana Yastremska defeated wildcard Danielle Collins 6-0 6-3

Johanna Konta defeated Laura Siegemund 6-2 7-5

Qualifier Zarina Diyas defeated Maria Sakkari 6-4 6-3

Petra Kvitová (3) defeated Aga Radwanska 6-1 7-6(3)

Qualifier Monica Puig defeated Timea Bacsinszky 7-5 6-1

Qualifier Aliaksandra Sasnovich defeated Kiki Mladenovic 7-6(6) 6-7(3) 6-2

The remaining opening round match to be played is that between Anett Kontaveit and lucky loser Pauline Parmentier.

Pauline is the replacement for Kiki Bertens (7), the latest withdrawal.  Kiki clearly couldn’t make it to Connecticut on time, given the distance from Cloud Nine where she has been since winning the Western & Southern Open last week.

My comment re Simona Halep is similarly applicable to Kiki.