The Belarusian Aryna Sabalenka, number one in the tennis world, swept the Greek María Sakkari (6-0 and 6-1) on the first day of the WTA Finals, a tournament that brings together the best eight.
With great effectiveness in his serve, Sabalenka left a frustrated Sakkari without answers, erratic with her serve to such an extent that he started crying in the middle of the meeting.
In the first set, Sakkari achieved 37 percent of points won on the first servebut the difference was in the low effectiveness he had in letting four break point opportunities go.
In the second, Sabalenka imposed conditions with her serve, one of the best on the WTA tour, and broke to, later take a 3-0 lead. With tears in his eyes, Sakkari tried to defend himself, but he couldn’t.
With the score 5-0, after Sabalenka had won 11 consecutive games, María finally held serve, but in the seventh game, The Belarusian signed her victory. Sabalenka hit 17 winnersnine more than his rival, who had three more unforced errors, (19-16).
“Maria is a player who fights regardless of the score, she is one of those who can come back at any moment and I focused on my game, on going point by point,” Sabalenka said.
Pegula se impone a Rybakina
A little before the American Jessica Pegula, fifth in the standings, won 7-5, 6-2 against Kazakhstan’s Elena Rybakina, fourth.
Rybakina made a break in the eighth game; however, when Jessica was against everything, she was patient, she took advantage of Elena’s mistakes. and he broke him in the ninth and eleventh games.
Inspired, Pegula went ahead 2-0 with a break against a subdued Rybakina, with difficulties in maintaining his serve and little effectiveness with his ‘drive’. From then on he was always ahead and won in 1h 23.
“It’s exciting to start with a win because Elena is a difficult player; she made mistakes and that helped me. I remain undefeated in Mexico and I thank the people for their support,” said Pegula, who last year was champion of the Master 1,000 in Guadalajara.
The WTA Finals take place in Cancun on a hard court with the eight best tennis players in the world competing for a prize pool of nine million dollars.
This Monday, in the other group, the Polish Iga Swiatek, second in the classification, will face the Czech Marketa Vondrousova, sixth racket in the world, and the American Coco Gauuf, third on the world list, will go against the Tunisian Ons Jabeur, seventh
2023-10-30 08:55:08
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