The opening day of the Hobart International saw a series of high profile names fail to progress beyond the first round.
Fourth seed Alize Cornet was the biggest seed to fall on Sunday. The world No.38 was clearly emotional on the court as struggled with a leg injury before crashing out 6-2, 6-4, to Romania’s Mihaela Buzarnescu. Hitting 19 unforced errors to only eight winners. The loss comes less than a week after she reached the quarter-finals of the Brisbane International.
“I never got the chance to really find my rhythm,” Cornet admitted after the match. “When I got some chances, I didn’t really make them.
“I’m really sad to be out of the tournament already.”
Suffering the setback ahead of the Australian Open, the 2016 Hobart champion is remaining defiant. Instead of attributing her loss to injury, she instead praised the performance of Buzarnescu. A player ranked 18 places lower than her in the WTA rankings, who won seven ITF titles during 2018.
“Mihaela was playing very good and making me run all over the court,” she said.
“Small injuries are part of our everyday life and we have to deal with it. I need to trust my body more.”
Another former champion to fall was Mona Barthel. The German player staged a late comeback before crashing out 6-0, 7-6(4), to Varvara Lepchenko. Barthel trailed the match 0-6, 3-5, before fighting her way back to keep within contention. It still wasn’t enough to turn the match around as she hit a total of 33 unforced errors to go out in straight sets.
“I think I dropped my intensity at the end of the second set, instead of stepping it up.” Lepchenko said following her victory over the 2012 champion. “I got pushed back and she (Bathel) started to serve much better. It’s good that I was able to put (my) intensity back into the tie break and win.”
Yulia Putintseva experienced little difficulty during her 6-3, 6-3, win over Japan’s Naomi Osaka. A player tipped to be a future star of the women’s game. The Kazah broke four times during the 75-minute match. Winning 77% of her first service points and hugely benefitting from Osaka’s costly error count of 38.
Finally, Brazil’s Beatriz Haddad Maia eased her way past Australian wildcard Lizette Cabrera 6-3, 6-2.
