Ons Jabeur beat Alison Riske 7-6 (3), 1-6, 6-3 yesterday at the Dubai Championships to earn a second-round date with top seed Simona Halep.
The Tunisian who trains in Dubai was encouraged by football-level support from flag-waving Tunisian fans.
“I’m so grateful for the crowd, they really gave me energy. It feels like home here,” said Jabeur.
“Alison is tough, she made me run everywhere, I was down in the second set but got it back in the third,” added the first Arab woman to reach a Grand Slam quarter-final last month at the Australian Open.
Jabeur lost the first eight points and missed a pair of set points in the 10th game before it went into a tie-breaker.
She led 5-0 in the decider and took the set on her fourth opportunity.
But the momentum shifted in the second set, with Riske taking a 5-0 lead before a Jabeur took a medical time out for blisters.
Barbora Strycova turned a corner after a poor start this season as she defeated US teenager Amanda Anisimova 7-6 (3), 2-6, 6-4, winning only her second match of 2020.
The 18-year-old Anisimova managed 43 winners but was weighed down by 67 unforced errors in a struggle lasting just over two-and-a-half hours.
“It wasn’t really a great match from both sides, the balls were flying everywhere, it was a struggle to keep them on the court,” the 33-year-old Dubai-based Strycova said.
“But I got through the match and I’m happy to be in the second round,” the 2016 finalist said of a contest played in the heat of a desert day.
“I like to compete and have the feeling of winning matches,” added the 2019 Wimbledon semi-finalist.
Strycova ended with 23 winners and 43 unforced errors and swept five of the last six games to advance.
Belgian Kim Clijsters lost her first match in her second tennis comeback following a 6-2, 7-6 (6) defeat to Garbine Muguruza in the first round yesterday.
Four-time Grand Slam champion Clijsters, 36, had been out for seven years before the clash with world number 16 Muguruza, who reached the final of the Australian Open last month.
Spain’s Muguruza, herself a two-time Grand Slam winner, will play one of Veronika Kudermetova and Dayana Yastremska in the next round.
Edmund downs Seppi to claim New York crown
Britain’s Kyle Edmund defeated Italy’s Andreas Seppi in straight sets to clinch the ATP Tour’s New York Open crown on Sunday.
Edmund, whose only previous singles title came at the European Open at Antwerp in 2018, cruised to a 7-5, 6-1 victory at the Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum in Uniondale, Long Island.
The eighth-seeded 25-year-old right-hander wrapped up victory in 1hr 21min, converting the second of three match points.
World number 62 Edmund overwhelmed Seppi with a vastly superior service game, peppering his Italian opponent with 11 aces to Seppi’s four with no double faults.
Edmund also put Seppi’s erratic serve under pressure, carving out seven break points to take a grip on the match.
from Gulf Times https://ift.tt/2HxdHmi
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