Dubai
Shuai Peng and Qiang Wang of China were among those advancing to the second round on the second day of the Dubai Duty Free Women’s Open on Monday.
Peng, who grabbed world headlines as a worthy successor to two-time Grand Slam winner Li Na with a semi-final at the 2014 US Open, took less than an hour and a half to dispatch lucky loser Elena Vesnina in the day’s first singles on centre court. Wang, who made her way through the qualifiers, got a good workout on one of the side courts with a well-fought 5-7, 6-1, 7-5 win over Japan’s Kurumi Nara.
Entering as the top seed at last week’s PTT Thailand Open, Peng crashed out in three sets in the second round itself against Japan’s Misaki Doi. But, the Chinese had had a great start to the season following her run into the fourth round of the Australian Open in Melbourne till she came up against eventual runner-up Maria Sharapova in the fourth round.
“There are a lot of lessons to be taken from a match against Maria [Sharapova]. She is such a strong player mentally and it is always good to see how she reacts on court,” Peng said.
There was disappointment for Great Britain’s top player Heather Watson as she succumbed to a 6-4, 7-5 loss against qualifier Kateryna Kozlova in an hour and 37 minutes. Watson was slow off the blocks, and in the second set requested for a medical time-out, but that did very little to assist her in raising her game.
“When I got here I was feeling like I was getting sick, and I tried to take some Vitamin C to stop it. Then yesterday I had a fever, temperature, so I was just in my room the whole day to try and rest up and get ready for today. I woke up today actually feeling a little bit better. Still not great, but I felt like I could go out there and have a good chance. I had my game plan to play aggressive tennis, keep points short, knew what I wanted to do,” Watson explained.
“In the beginning of the second set I started to get this pain in both of my feet. I thought it was just like maybe some cramp or something, just very slight, and as that set went on it just started getting worse and worse to the point where like it was agony to just touch. Still I don’t really know what it was,” she added.
“It’s feeling definitely better now than it was towards the end of the match, but, yeah, just definitely not my day physically.”
