Caroline Wozniacki found herself out of gas to compete at her usual level Tuesday. The winner of last week’s tournament put all her energy but didn’t have enough to stop Maria Sakkari
of Greece from winning the opening round of the Wuhan Open 7-5, 6-3 on Court One at the Wuhan Optical Valley Tennis Centre. It was the first Top Ten win this season for Sakkari and a big step to continue on in the tournament.
The recent winner of the Pan Pacific Open was back at it again to keep the positive vibes going. After snapping her six final losing streak, Wozniacki was more than ready to keep the four match winning streak going as her push to succeed further came against the 22 year old she has never faced before. The Greek put in a lot of work against Yulia Puntintseva who has her moments of strength but couldn’t keep the pace in her opening round match. Sakkari would no doubt understand her previous opponent’s feelings if the Dane had the energy to continue on at the pace.
She kept level with Sakkari through ten games but the endurance showed in the former number one’s actions to the point of suffering two critical losses to sit a set down. Wozniacki’s second serve was dismal getting just two of ten to count in the opening set while the 22 year old kept her first serve high enough to drag the second along.
The Greek began to improve in the second taking a lead over the Dane with an improvement on both sides of the serve despite struggling on break point opportunities. Her benefit of Wozniacki’s fatigue came to light as the return game suffered greatly. Sakkari gained the lead midway and never looked back to pull off the upset after 94 minutes of play.
With the success of her top ten win the Greek would await Elena Vesnina in Wednesday’s matchup.
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