Ivanovic and Venus Roll in Wuhan Openers
Ana Ivanovic moved into the second round of the Wuhan Open, cruising past Alexandra Dulgheru 6-1, 6-3.
“At the beginning of the first set in the first game I was a little nervous, but luckily I wasn’t behind for long,” said Ivanovic. “As the match went on I really tried to step it up a little more and I managed to get the break. I’m really happy to get the win and be in the second round here.”
Ivanovic broke six times overall and won 61 percent of the points on Dulgheru’s serve. The Serb actually dropped serve in the match’s opening game, but responded by winning 13 of the next 15 points to take the opening set.
She then secured an early break in the second set and went on to serve out the match to advance. Ivanovic moves on to play American Madison Brengle, who beat Dominika Cibulkova 6-3, 6-4 in her opening-round match.
Venus Williams played clinical tennis to move past red-hot Agnieszka Radwanska on Monday, beating the Pole 6-1, 7-6(4) to advance to the second round.
Radwanska was coming off a title at the Toray Pan Pacific Open last week, but was stifled by the American on Monday.
Venus jumped out to a 5-0 first-set lead and never really looked back. Despite squandering a break advantage in the second set, she would go on to close it out in a tiebreaker.
Overall, Venus hit 51 winners on Monday and broke Radwanska three times in seven chances.
She goes on to face Julia Goerges next.
Sloane Stephens, Madison Keys, Belinda Bencic and Karolina Pliskova were some of the other notable winners in Wuhan on Monday.
