Auckland: Belgium's Yanina Wickmayer began the defence of her Auckland Classic title with a enthralling, hard-fought 6-3 6-7 6-1 first-round victory over former world number one Dinara Safina yesterday.
While the presence of grand slam title winners Maria Sharapova and Svetlana Kuznetsova has helped to effectively sell out the entire tournament, Wickmayer and Safina gave the capacity crowd the best value for money so far with a tough baseline battle filled with aggressive shot making.
Good start
"It was tough, I thought she played really well," Wickmayer told reporters after the two hour, ten minute match.
"I thought we both played a good level of tennis so it was nice match to start off the year, a tough one."
Wickmayer had romped to a 3-0 lead in the first set and it looked as though Safina's first match on the new Plexicushion blue courts in Auckland would be over in less than an hour.
RESULTS
Auckland Classic women's singles first round results yesterday. (prefix denotes seeding, * new result)
* 8-Sofia Arvidsson (Sweden) beat Tamira Paszek (Austria) 6-3 6-1
* 2-Yanina Wickmayer (Belgium) beat Dinara Safina (Russia) 6-3 6-7(2) 6-1
* Simona Halep (Romania) beat Ayumi Morita (Japan) 6-0 7-6(3)
* 7-Elena Vesnina (Russia) beat Marina Erakovic (New Zealand) 6-2 6-2 Heather Watson (Britain) beat Noppawan Lertcheewakarn (Thailand) 6-1 6-1
Alize Cornet (France) beat Sandra Zahlavova (Czech Republic) 3-6 7-5 6-0
Sabine Lisicki (Germany) beat Florencia Molinero (Argentina) 6-1 6-3
9-Carla Suarez Navarro (Spain) beat Romina Oprandi (Italy) 6-3 7-6(7)
Greta Arn (Hungary) beat Zuzana Ondraskova (Czech Republic) 6-1 6-0
