Paris: Varvara Lepchenko has waited a while between Grand Slam match wins. Then again, she knows a thing or two about a lengthy journey.
Born in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, but now living in Pennsylvania and representing the United States, the 127th-ranked Lepchenko ended her seven-match losing streak at tennis' major championships by beating American Christina McHale 7-5, 6-3 in the first round of the French Open on Sunday.
Lepchenko moved with her father and sister to Miami a decade ago. She was granted political asylum so she could leave Uzbekistan, an ex-Soviet Central Asian nation to the north of Afghanistan that the US government has pressed to improve its human rights record. Lepchenko's mother didn't join the rest of the family until four years later.
After playing in a lower-tier tournament in Pennsylvania in 2003, Lepchenko decided to move from Miami to Allentown, where she now lives with her parents.
"Sometimes, when you travel to big cities to play tennis, you want to come back to a small town." The 24-year-old Lepchenko said she's on track to get her US citizenship next year, and she hopes to be a part of the country's Fed Cup team one day.
Lepchenko's second-round opponent at the French Open will be No 26 Dominika Cibulkova of Slovakia, who was a semifinalist in 2009.
McHale earned a wild card into the French Open by winning a US Tennis Association mini-tournament in Florida last month. The winner of the men's wild card in that playoff, Ryan Sweeting of Fort Lauderdale, Florida, also lost Sunday. He was beaten by Juan Ignacio Chela of Argentina 6-0, 6-4, 7-6 (4).
The other American man in action Sunday, qualifier Michael Yani of Durham, North Carolina, was tied 8-8 in the fifth set with Lukas Lacko of Slovakia when their match was suspended by darkness.
Scheepers victory
Meanwhile, Chanelle Scheepers went through qualifying merely to make it into the French Open, and now she's the first South African woman to win a main-draw match at Roland Garros since 2001.
The 131st-ranked Scheepers is also the first woman from her country in more than six years to win a match at any major tennis championship. She beat France's Mathilde Johansson 6-2, 6-4.
