There were few shocks in the final round of the Women’s Qualifying event for the Australian Open, as most seeds left emerged to take their place in the main draw.
Top seed Qiang Wang led the high-ranked players through, as she defeated Richel Hogenkamp 6-2, 6-3 in fifty-eight minutes. Second seed Nicole Gibbs almost matched her score, but eventually had to settle for a 6-3, 6-3 win over Ivana Jorovic of Serbia.
Shuai Zhang (18) did face some difficulty in her match against Virginie Razzano, but did finally prevail 4-6, 6-2, 8-6. Anastasija Sevastova (5) also had to produce a comeback, 4-6, 6-3, 6-2 over American Julia Boserup. Fourteenth seed Tamaria Paszek also took her place in the main draw, winning 6-4, 6-2 in knocking out Barbora Krejcikova.
Kristyna Pliskova’s (7) match with American Sachia Vickery (15) was perhaps the closest in terms of quality, with the lower-ranked player getting off to a great start by winning the first set by a long margin. Pliskova fought back to take the second before a long third-set saw the Czech finally prevail 2-6, 6-2, 7-5.
The only major seeded shock was provided by Luksika Kumkhum, as she took down Julia Glushko (16) 6-4, 6-2.
Due to the exodus of seeds in round prior to this one, the rest of the qualification matches failed to have a seed even take part. Naomi Osaka, Viktorija Golubvic, Maria Sakkari, and Maryna Zanevska all took their chances to progress to the main draw by winning in straight sets.
Yafan Wang found her match against Slovakia’s Kristina Kucova very difficult, but finally took her place as well. It took a 5-7, 7-6, 6-3 win for the Chinese to oust the world no. 144.
