Play continues in Tokyo and Guangzhou on Day 2 of this week’s WTA 500 and WTA 250 events…
Tokyo | WTA 500 Toray Pan Pacific Open
Britain’s 15-year old Mika Stojsavljevic was denied her first WTA Tour win after an agonising 6-4 6-7(9) 7-6(6) loss to Japan’s Moyuka Uchijima in the 1st-round of the Pan Pacific Open, while British No 1 Katie Boulter eased to a 6-1 6-4 win against Australia’s Priscilla Hon to reach the Last 16 in Tokyo.
Stojsavljevic, who is the reigning US Open girls’ champion, held a 3-2 lead against Uchijima, ranked 57 in the world, but was broken 3 times in a row to lose the first set.
The Brit saved 3 match points in the second and went on to win the tight tiebreak to level the match. She took that momentum into the decider, breaking Uchijima to take a 5-2 lead, but the World No 633 missed her chance to serve out the match, allowing the 23-year-old Japanese to level at 5-5.
Forcing the match breaker, Stojsavljevic saved 2 more match points, but Uchijima recovered to see out the win in 2 hours and 51 minutes and moves on to face top seed Zheng Qinwen in the 2nd round.
28-year-old Boulter broke Hon, a qualifier, 3 times in the first set, converting 100% of her break points, and the second proved equally straightforward as the Brit broke the Aussie, who is ranked 184 places below her, 2 more times.
Boulter, ranked 33 and the 9th seed in Tokyo, next will play Japan’s Kyoka Okamura, another lucky loser who reversed her qualifying loss to Hailey Baptiste in Tokyo’s 1st-round.
Okamura had lost to the American, 6-3 7-5, in the final qualifying round, but got into the main draw as a lucky loser and reversed the result, 7-6(4) 6-3.
The win was the 29-year-old Okamura’s first in a WTA main draw, and her first over a Top 100 player.
Former Australian Open champion Sofia Kenin, a wild-card, extended her perfect record against Wang Xinyu, beating the 10th-seeded Chinese, 6-1 6-4, in her 1st-round match on Tuesday.
The 25-year-old American, who won the Australian Open in 2020 and was a French Open finalist the same year, won her 4th straight match over Wang, her previous victories over the Chinese coming twice at Wimbledon, in 2021 and 2023, and at Auckland, New Zealand last year.
Kenin beat Garbiñe Muguruza in the Melbourne Park Grand Slam singles final in 2020 and lost to Iga Swiatek in the French Open final a few months later.
After her Australian Open win, she achieved her highest ranking of No 4, but a series of injuries over the past several years has seen her ranking slip to her current No 155, and she also had to withdraw from the 2021 US Open due to COVID-19.
Kenin advances to meet Denmark’s Clara Tauson in round 2, a lucky loser who posted a 6-2 6-3 over wild-card Nao Hibino, her second win over the Japanese in the space of a month following their Hong Kong WTA 125 quarter-final meeting.
In a clash between Japanese teenagers, 19-year-old qualifier Sayaka Ishii bested 18-year-old lucky loser Sara Saito, 6-1 6-1, recording her first main-draw win on the Hologic WTA Tour to make the 2nd-round where she will meet another qualifier, Zeynap Sonmez from Turkey, next.
Completing the 2nd-round line-up on Tuesday is American McCartney Kessler, who stormed past Elisabetta Cocciaretto from Italy, 6-3 6-3, to face 3rd seed Daria Kasatkina from Russia next.
Top seed Katerina Siniakova kicked off her Guangzhou Open with an easy win over qualifier Petra Martic
© Wang He/Getty Images
Guangzhou | WTA 250 Guangzhou Open presented by AVAIR
Top seeds Katerina Siniakova, Marie Bouzkova and Yuan Yue advanced to the 2nd-round with straight set wins in China, but 4th-seeded Elina Avanesyan fell to Lucia Bronzetti.
Siniakova maintained her perfect record against Croatia qualifier Petra Martic, the Czech improving to 4-0 with her 6-2 6-1 opening win, and she will meet lucky loser Alicia Parks next, after the American defeated Hungarian Anna Bondar, 6-3 6-3.
Her Czech compatriot, Bouzkova, ended Osaka champion Suzan Lamens’s 7-match winning streak with a 6-3 6-1 win in her 1st-round match.
Bouzkova moves on to face American qualifier Caroline Dolehide, who defeated lucky loser Elena Pridankina from Russia, making her WTA main-draw debut after replacing Britain’s Harriet Dart, 6-2 6-1.
Home hope Yuan Yue, the No 3 seed, overturned a 2-5 first-set deficit to beat Belgian Greet Minnen, 7-6(2) 6-1, and will meet Thailand’s Mananchaya Sawangkaew next, who reprised her qualifying defeat of German lucky loser Ella Seidel, 6-1 2-6 6-2.
Another Chinese, Wang Xiyu, the defending champion, defeated Arantxa Rus, 6-2 6-4, improving to 3-2 overall against the Dutchwoman, and she will now face local wild-card Wei Sijia in round 2.
Spain’s Jessica Bouzas Maneiro, the 7th seed, moved past qualifier Jana Fett from Croatia, 6-4 6-3, setting up a contest with 19-year old Chinese wild-card Shi Han, who overcame French qualifier Jessika Ponchet, 6-1 6-7(4), to post her first WTA main-draw win.
Shi held her first 2 match points at 5-4 in the second set, but needed a decider to seal the win after 2 hours and 42 minutes.
Lucia Bronzetti toppled 4th-seeded Elina Avanesyan of Armenia, 6-1 6-4, and the Italian will take on Romania’s Jaqueline Cristian for a spot in the quarter-finals.
France’s 5th seed Diane Parry, though, eased past a lucky loser, 31-year old American, Emina Bektas, 6-3 6-2, in her opener in just 75 minutes to set up a 2nd-round encounter with Olga Danilovic from Serbia.
Meanwhile, American Bernarda Pera dispatched Alexandra Eala from the Philippines, 6-0 6-3, to set up a meeting with wild-card Zhang Shuai, after the Chinese upset Kamilla Rakhimova, the 8th seed from Russia, 6-2 7-1.
