World number 17 Petra Kvitova suffered a shock exit as she lost Lin Zhu 6-4 5-7 6-4 as the Tianjin Open had a heavy schedule to deal with on Wednesday.
The second seed had to deal with yet another long winded match as she saw her Zhuhai chances fade away after today’s latest loss. There were nine breaks of serve during the match as Kvitova couldn’t hold serve against her Chinese opponent, who was simply too good on return. The Czech Republican ran out of stamina in the third set as she fell to the world number 113. However give credit to Zhu, who gained the biggest win of her career so far. She will now play Su-Wei Hsieh who beat qualifier Jing-Jing Lu, 6-2 6-2.
However one big name that was victorious today was Maria Sharapova. The Russian, who’s match was delayed due to bad weather, displayed a dominant victory as she beat Romanian Irina-Camelia Begu 6-4 6-2. Sharapova was far superior on her first serve as she only lost five points in the whole match on her first service. Begu was unable to perform to her best ability as the Russian won all four of her break point opportunities to seal her place in the second round.
After the match she explained that she enjoys visiting Tianjin, ‘I enjoy the intimacy, I think it’s a nice change. As a professional tennis player, you play most of the time playing in big arenas, and these smaller venues are very intimate and it’s a really good feeling.’ Sharapova will now play Poland’s Magda Linette tomorrow as Linette scored a hard fought victory over Kateryna Bondarenko 3-6 6-3 7-5. The Pole has won 11 of her last 14 matches, including qualifying, and will be no easy task for Sharapova as Garbine Muguruza found out a few weeks ago in Tokyo.
Another big story in Tianjin is the return of Sara Errani. The Italian as just returned from a short doping ban and returned with a 6-2 6-1 victory over Ukrainian Kateryna Kozlova. Although Errani looked rusty on serve, she broke Kozlova seven times as she advanced to the second round. Errani will now play Brazilian Beatriz Haddad Maia who beat upcoming Croatian Donna Vekic 6-7(4) 6-4 6-2 in a contest that lasted just over two hours. Despite only converting 28% of break points, Haddad Maia battled hard for victory.
It was a busy schedule on Wednesday with Tianjin catching up with no play being held on the first two days, so here are the other results of the day:
Stefanie Voegele def Kristie Ahn 6-3 6-3
Yulia Putintseva def Lauren Davis 7-6(2) 4-6 6-2
Shuai Peng def Hanyu Guo 6-2 7-6(5)
Xiyu Wang def Danka Kovinic 6-3 7-6(8)
Sara Sorribes Tormo def Arina Rodionova 6-2 6-7(3) 6-4
Yafan Wang def Alison Riske 6-3 6-3
Maria Sakkari def Fangzhou Liu 6-2 6-1
Christina Mchale def Nao Hibino 6-3 6-3
Ying-Ying Duan def Lesia Tsurenko 6-4 7-6(3)
Aryna Sabalenka def Xinyun Han 6-3 6-3
