Dubai: Three of the top four seeds will be in action on the opening day as the inaugural Fujairah International Women Tennis Open gets under way at the Mohammad Bin Rashid Al Maktoum Complex at Fujairah Tennis and Country Club (FTCC) on Monday.
The second round of qualifying will kick off the opening day at 9.30am, while action in the main draw will commence at 11.30am with top seed Viktorija Golubic taking on Rebecca Sramkova of Slovakia on Court 3, while second seed Clara Tauson of Denmark faces Anastasia Gasanova of Russia on Centre Court.
Fourth seed Leonie Kung of Switzerland will take on Reka-Luka Jani of Hungary later in the afternoon, with the winner ending up against either Daria Snigur or a qualifier in the second round.
China’s Xinyu Wang is the No. 3 seed and she will start her campaign against one of the eight qualifiers coming through from the two days of initial competition, on Tuesday.
Meanwhile, the first rounds of qualifying were held on Sunday with Great Britain’s Naomi Broady and Latvia’s Marija Semenistaja among the winners. The 30-year-old Broady took less than an hour to dispose of Dutch teenager Sem Hazes 6-1, 6-1, while Semenistaja had to dig in deep for a 6-3, 3-6, 10-7 win over China’s Ni Ma Zhouma.
The main draw of the tournament was made in the presence of Tournament Director Khalid Al Ali and it was decided to hand out wild cards to four players, including Fatma Al Nabhani of Oman, Darja Semenistaja of Latvia, Anastasia Gasanova of Russia and Ma Shuyue of China.
Al Nabhani will wait for one of the eight players coming through the qualifying rounds, while Semenistaja will play fifth seed Kurumi Nara of Japan, Gasanova will be up against No. 2 Tauson and Ma will take on Pattinama Kerkhove of the Netherlands.
The inaugural edition of the Fujairah International Women Tennis Open is part of the 2021 ITF Women’s World Tennis Tour. The tournament is being held to hand a playing opportunity to lower ranked players who have been in the UAE for the past few weeks participating in the Australian Open qualifiers.
Play will held daily this week until the singles final at 1pm on Saturday.
RESULTS
Naomi Broady bt Sem Hazes 6-1, 6-1
Marija Semenistaja bt Zhouma Ni Ma 6-3, 3-6, 10-7
