The opening day at the Apia International in Sydney saw its first major casualty when sixth seed Timea Bacsinszky lost 1-6, 6-1, 6-3, to world No.26 Anna Karolina Schmiedlova.
Bacsinszky, who reached the semifinals at last year’s French Open, appeared to be in good shape after tasking the opening set in just 31 minutes. Despite the encouraging first set, things started to fall apart for the Swiss world No.12 after dropping the second set with the same scoreline. The biggest issue for the sixth seed was her serve. After winning 80% of her service points in the first set, Bacsinszky buckled under the pressure from her opponent as she won only 33% during the second. As the final set approached the Swiss took the lead in the match twice when she broke Schmiedlova two consecutive times. The lead was short-lived as the Czech broke back immediately both times before grabbing a decisive third break to seal the match.
The loss in Sydney means that Bacsinszky will go into next week’s Australian Open without a win on the WTA Tour this year. Last week she lost in the first round of the Brisbane International to Russia’s Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova.
Another player yet to win a match this year is Ana Ivanovic. The Serbian received a wildcard into the tournament following her shock loss to Naomi Broady in the first round of last week’s Auckland Open. After narrowly missing out on being seeded, Ivanovic faced fifth seed Karoline Pliskova. The Serbian was unable to produce a shock win after being broken twice during the early start of both sets as Pliskova eased her way to take the match 6-4, 6-2.
Pliskova spoke of her delight following the win as she moves closer to a potential quarter-final clash with Simona Halep.
“I know she got the wildcard and obviously she’s a great player. She can beat anyone”. Pliskova said about Ivanovic.
“I was really expecting a tough match. I’m just happy it went a little bit more my way and I think it was a solid win for me today.”
Simona Halep’s first match of the year will be against Caroline Garcia in the second round. Last week Halep withdrew from Brisbane due to a leg injury. Garcia booked a second round showdown with the top seed after defeating compatriot Kristina Mladenovic 7-6(4), 6-4. It is the second consecutive week that Garcia has beaten Mladenovic after also winning their first encounter in Brisbane last week.
Tsvetana Pironkova spent exactly two hours on the court during her 7-6(6), 6-2, win over Ukraine’s Lesia Tsurenko. The Bulgarian currently has a strong record at the tournament after winning the title in 2014 and reaching the semi-finals last year (both as a qualifier).
In other matches on the first day of the tournament, former world No.2 Svetlana Kutznetsova required just over an hour to defeat Australian wildcard Tammi Patterson (6-2, 6-0) and Jelena Janovic dropped served only once during her 6-3, 6-4, win over Coco Vandeweghe.
