Third seed Maria Sakkari eased past Anna Karolina Schmiedlova 6-0 6-1 in just 62 minutes in the opening round of the KEB Hana Bank Korea Bank in Seoul.
Sakkari scored her third win in her previous two head-to head matches in 2016 (6-2 6-3 in Istanbul and 2-6 6-3 6-4 in Tashkent).
Sakkari converted all her seven break points and won 67% of her second serve points. The young Greek player won 16 of the final 19 points. Schmiedlova made 19 unforced errors and made her sixth double fault on the match point.
The young Greek player earned an early break in the opening game before holding serve from 0-40 down. Schmiedlova won just one game point in the next five games.
Schmiedlova hit a forehand down the line (her first winner of the match), when she faced her first set point.
Sakkari scored the third bagel of her career after beating Anett Kontaveit 6-0 6-4 in the first round of the 2017 Australian Open and easing past Timea Babos 6-0 6-1 in the second round in San José this July.
“My whole game was in full flow from the off. I was very solid and very aggressive when I had to be. The best aspect of my performance was my baseline. It is my big weapon and it worked well well”, said Sakkari to the wta website.
Sakkari set up a second round match against either Margarita Gasparyan or Varvara Flink.
Tamara Zidansek from Slovenia faced just a single break point in her 6-1 6-3 win over Polona Hercog to score her 52nd win of the season. She has improved her ranking by over 120 places since February.
Switzerland’s Stefanie Voegele rallied from 1-4 down to edge past Ji-Hee Choi 6-3 2-6 6-4 setting up a second round match against Jill Teichmann.
