The spectators of the China Open have been stunned following the exit of the two top ranked players in the tournament.
Romanian top seed Simona Halep retired after nine games in her match against Spanish world No.95 Lara Arruabarrena. Halep appeared motionless on the court as she dropped two out of her four service games in the first set against the World No.95. Trailing 4-5 in the opening set she called quits to the match due to an issue with her left achilles. She told the WTA that she experianced the pain last week but didn’t expect the pain to get so intense.
Simona Halep said she first felt pain in her left achilles in Guangzhou. Didn’t think it would get that bad. Felt too much pain today.
— WTA Insider (@WTA_insider) October 4, 2015
Halep was the fourth player to retire on Sunday. Proceeding her was Carla Suarez Navarro, who retired after taking the first set, Monica Puig and Coco Vanderweghe.
Besides the retirements, there was more bloodshed as second seed Petra Kvitova crashed out to Sara Errani 7-5, 6-4. During the start of the second set the Czech called a trainer onto the court to treat her left shoulder as she made an early exit at the tournament. Leading up to the match Errani has lost to the Czech six consecutive times. In the second round Errani will play France’s Caroline Garcia.
There was better news for US Open champion Flavia Pennetta, who had to overcome a big test against Chinese wildcard Han Xinyun before winning 7-5,4-6,6-4. The third seed was broken seven times during the match which lasted almost two-and-a-half-hours. After taking the first set and leading 2-0 in the second, Pennetta was on course to claiming the straight sets victory before Xinyun staged a stunning fightback to take the second set. Pennetta went down 0-2 in the final set before winning six out of the following eight games to take the marathon match. After the match, Han said that the Italian wasn’t playing her best tennis but still gave her credit.
“Flavia was dealing with those moments very well – I don’t think she played her best tennis today, but in the important moments she was better than me. So all the credit goes to her.” Han said.
In the second round Pennetta will play Brazil’s Teliana Pereira for the first time in her career. Pereira beat Alexandra Dulgheru 7-5,6-2, in her opening match.
