Elina Svitolina had a good challenge in her return to action in the WTA tour Sunday night. The world number three kept calm and collected in her match against Lin Zhu to win 6-3, 6-2 in the opening round of the China Open.
The two met last year at Kuala Lumpur where the Ukrainian beat the Chinese star before going on to win her fourth WTA title. With five more under her belt already this season. The 23-year-old hoped that with time off since her fourth-round appearance at the US Open, she could get back into gear in her first tournament in China.
Svitolina’s first shot was an ace to the left followed by some good points to win it. Nerves were difficult along the way for both players but as they concluded their serves, it spelled out a pace they would carry for a time. For the Chinese star, her attempt for a love service fell apart forcing deuce with Svitolina. She managed to hold but doing so against the third seed also proved difficult. The third game went seven minutes and four breaks before Zhu lost a grip handing the Ukrainian a hold.
She got into a groove that produced a break on Zhu which consolidated the service hold thereafter. Zhu cut the score margin in half before fighting Svitolina on deuce in the third in an attempt to get within reach. Two breaks elapsed but the Ukrainian held earning a shot at closing the set with a break of Zhu.
The Chinese star held her ground in the eighth but faced tremendous skills from the world number three who had great court positioning, ball placement and speed to close out the set in 40 minutes. Svitolina got plenty of her points against the second serve of Zhu that won on 3 of 11 shots and 4 of 19 on the returns. With those being her weak points, the 23-year-old knew she had to get something to better into the second.
Zhu led the way in the set holding serve each time she had the ball until the fourth when Svitolina had troubles with the serve. The edge sat with Zhu for a time tugging for the AD point three times but couldn’t string enough points together. She paid the price on serve in the fifth as Svitolina attacked her game to get the break and lead forward.
The gap widened to a pair of games for the Ukrainian who was in total control adding another break to the score. She served for the match in the eighth where it took deuce to get it done with some errors along the way. She minimized the time on the break to keep it short and win it on a forced error from Zhu ending things in 75 minutes. The third seed maintained a serve near 80 percent with 19 winners and three of four points won on the break. With an overall good performance and warmed up to fight on, she’d have to do so Tuesday against Wuhan finalist Ashleigh Barty in the second round.
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