American Sloane Stephens Upset in First Round in Strasbourg
Two major upsets highlighted the first round of the Strasbourg International on Tuesday, as top-seeded American Sloane Stephens and sixth-seeded Bojana Jovanovski were bounced from the tournament in France.
Stephens came into the tournament as the number one seed, hoping to improve her seed and draw at the French Open. She drew the German Julia Goerges, a former Top 15 player in the world, who outplayed her from the opening minutes of the match.
As each player exchanged points on their serve in the first set, Goerges was finally able to break the American and go up 5-3, eventually closing the set out with her serve, capturing the opener 6-3.
From there, Goerges broke serve in the first game of the second set and never looked back, cruising to a set win and a 6-3, 6-2 match victory.
“It’s definitely a good win,” said Goerges. “It’s always a good win to beat a Top 20 player, especially someone I’ve lost to before. And I’m pleased the way I played today—it was pretty solid in general. She had two or three games in each set where she wasn’t on top and I tried to take advantage of it.”
Sixth-seeded Serbian Bojana Jovanovski took on Mirjana Lucic-Baroni in the first round on Tuesday and was completely outplayed by the Croatian qualifier. She saved all four break points and dropped only four games all match to Jovanovski as she cruised to the 6-4, 6-0, over the 39th ranked player in the world.
American Christina McHale, a native of Teaneck, New Jersey, pushed her way into the second round with a victory over Alexandra Cadantu, while another American Lauren Davis beat Olga Gorvotsova.
