The second and third seeds had to dig deep to get through their first round encounters at the Mutua Madrid Open, while Slovakia’s Cibulkova became the first of the favourites in the competition to make her exit after losing to Samantha Stosur on an intense Monday of action.
While yesterday saw two of the favourites to lift the title, Maria Sharapova and Serena Williams, get off to strong starts at the Mutua Madrid Open, Monday was the turn of Li Na and Agnieszka Radwanska, the second and third seeds, with the Chinese and Polish players also progressing to the second round after beating Belgium’s Kirsten Flipkens and Canada’s Eugenie Bouchard. Meanwhile, Dominika Cibulkova was beaten by Samantha Stosur, and Spain’s Tita Torró made an early exit after losing to Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova. In the day’s first match in the Manolo Santana Centre Court, Li Na got off to a blistering start, and quickly took the first set in convincing fashion (6-1).
However, her opponent reacted well. Flipkens raised her game significantly and made things a lot more difficult for Li Na to force a tie-break, which the Chinese star was just about able to come out on top in to kill off the match (9-7). Her 6-1, 7-6 victory means she will now meet fellow countrywoman Jie Zheng in the second round. Also through to the second round is Agnieszka Radwanska, after coming out on top 7-6, 6-2 in her tricky opening tie against one of this year’s Australian Open semi-finalists, Eugenie Bouchard. There was nothing between the players in the first set, which was decided with a tie-break. From there on, the world no. 3 upped her game to take a commanding lead on the scoreboard, and with the momentum going in her favour she was able to dampen her opponent’s hopes bit by bit before eventually killing of the match.
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