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November 2, 2017

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Rybarikova outlasts Mladenovic

SLOVAK Magdalena Rybarikova clinched her first victory of the WTA Elite Trophy yesterday, beating top seed Kristina Mladenovic 7-5, 1-6, 7-6 (5) in a thrilling match lasting 2 hours and 48 minutes.

Rybarikova made an impressive start, firing two aces on her way to winning the first set over her French opponent in Zhuhai, south China’s Guangdong Province.

The 29-year-old, ranked 22 in the world, struggled with injury during the majority of the second set, and after ceding a 1-4 lead, took a medical timeout.

Mladenovic, unaffected by the break, raced to a second-set win, in which she hit 13 winners. The players exchanged early breaks in the final set but Rybarikova clinched the decisive lead in the tiebreak, before sealing the victory on her seventh match point.

“I am happy that I went through this match because conditions were tough and I had some problems with my leg,” Rybarikova said after the match.

“I was saying to myself that I had to win this match because I had so many match points and it would be really cruel to end the season like this.”

Rybarikova improved her record in the Azalea Group to 1-1 after dropping her first match to Julia Goerges on Tuesday.

Mladenovic will now have to beat Goerges later in the week to have any chance of reaching the final four.

Australia’s Ashleigh Barty moved to the top of the Rose Group with a 6-4, 6-1 win over Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova.

Barty broke the Russian’s serve four times and served nine aces in the victory and will qualify for the semifinals outright, should she beat Angelique Kerber today. “To qualify for this week is just a massive bonus,” Barty, the youngest player in the draw at 21, told reporters.

Latvia’s Anastasija Sevastova cruised past reigning US Open champion Sloane Stephens 7-5, 6-3 to avenge her quarterfinal loss in New York.

The tournament in Zhuhai features the leading players on the women’s tour who didn’t qualify for the WTA Finals in Singapore last week. The 12-player tournament is divided into four groups of three, with the winner of each group advancing to the semifinals.

In Paris, fourth seed Alexander Zverev was dumped out of the Paris Masters yesterday by Dutchman Robin Haase in a 6-3, 2-6, 2-6 second-round defeat.

The 20-year-old German lost his composure after taking the first set, as his bid for a third Masters title of the season was abruptly ended at Bercy Arena.

It was the world No. 43 Haase’s first-ever win over a top-five player.

Zverev will next play at the World Tour Finals in London later this month, while Haase goes on to a last-16 tie against either Joao Sousa or 13th seed Juan Martin del Potro.

Home hope Lucas Pouille kept his slim hopes of qualifying for the World Tour Finals alive by seeing off Spaniard Feliciano Lopez 6-3, 6-4.

The 17th seed needs to at least reach the final at Bercy to stand a chance of taking one of the final two places for the year-end eight-man event, but he was handed a boost when given Roger Federer’s place in the draw after the Swiss second seed’s withdrawal.

American John Isner, who lost in last year’s final to Andy Murray, battled to a 7-6 (2), 6-7 (11), 6-3 victory over Argentine Diego Schwartzman.




 

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