Dubai: Former top-10 player Kristina Mladenovic led the top two seeds into the next round of qualifying as the Dubai Duty Free Women’s Open got underway on Saturday.
Mladenovic, who rose to a career high No 10 in October 2017, has been seeded fourth in the qualifying rounds here this week.
The French girl took just 74 minutes in sweeping off Italy’s Jasmine Paolini 6-1, 6-3 to book a place against China’s Xinyun Han, on Sunday.
Also advancing with relative ease was top seed Julia Goerges of Germany with a straight-set 6-2, 6-4 win against another Italian, Camila Giorgi, while second seed Shuai Zhang sent Japan’s Misaki Doi packing off with a 6-4, 6-3 win.
Former three-time doubles Grand Slam champion and Al Habtoor Tennis Challenge winner Hsieh Su-wei also eased through into the second round with a 6-2, 6-2 win over French girl Chloe Paquet in a little over one hour.
Action on the second day of the qualifiers will start at 10.30am at the side courts of the Dubai Duty Free Tennis Stadium, on Sunday.
Results
Shuai Zhang bt Misaki Doi 6-4, 6-3; Aliaksandra Sasnovich bt Luisa Stefani 7-6, 2-6, 6-2; Daria Kasatkina bt Natalia Vikhlyantseva 6-3, 6-2; Anna Blinkova bt Magdalena Frech 6-4, 2-6, 6-3; Ana Bogdan bt Barbora Krejcikova 6-4, 6-4; Julia Goerges bt Camila Giorgi 6-2, 6-4; Jennifer Brady bt Kristyna Pliskova 6-3, 7-6; Kristina Mladenovic bt Jasmine Paolini 6-1, 6-4; Sorana Cirstea bt Margarita Gasparyan 6-4, 6-3; Kirsten Flipkens bt Viktorija Golubic 6-3, 7-5; Bethanie Mattek-Sands bt Ajla Tomljanovic 6-4, 3-6, 7-6; Polona Hercog bt Xiaodi You 6-3, 6-3; Tereza Martincova bt Jil Teichmann 7-5, 6-4; Gabriela Dabrowski bt Vera Pursnani 6-0, 6-0; Xinyun Han bt Ysaline Bonaventure 7-6, 2-6, 6-2; Su-Wei Hsieh bt Chloe Paquet 6-2, 6-2; Giulia Gatto-Monticone bt Elitsa Kostova 6-1, 7-5; Veronika Kudermetova bt Sarah Beth Grey 6-2, 6-4.
