Barty upset by alternate Bertens at WTA Finals
Kiki Bertens in action during her Red Group match against Australia's Ashleigh Barty at the WTA Finals in Shenzhen, southern Guangdong Province, on Tuesday. The Dutchwoman won 3-6, 6-3, 6-4.
World No. 1 Ashleigh Barty was upset by late substitute Kiki Bertens 6-3, 3-6, 4-6 at the WTA Finals on Tuesday.
Bertens arrived at the elite tournament in Shenzhen as an alternate, and has suddenly jumped into title contention with the other seven players in the draw. The Dutchwoman took the place of Naomi Osaka, who withdrew from the finals earlier on Tuesday with a right shoulder injury ahead of her second round-robin match.
The second singles of the day went in Belinda Bencic's favor when she outlasted Petra Kvitova 6-3, 1-6, 6-4.
Swiss Bencic, in her WTA Finals debut, decisively broke her Czech opponent in the ninth game of the third set.
The Bencic win means all four players in the Red Group are still in contention for semifinals action.
The Red Group standings find Bencic and Barty at 1-1, Kvitova at 0-2, and Bertens at 1-0 going into the last round-robin matches. On Thursday, Barty will play Kvitova, and Bertens will meet Bencic.
With little notice she'd be playing, Bertens earned her first career victory over Barty in five matches played.
Barty, winner of the first set, led by a break twice in the second at 2-1 and 3-2.
"When you give a player of Kiki's caliber a chance to get back into the match not once but twice, she's going to make you pay," the Australian said. "That's probably the most disappointing thing. Twice in the second set I was up a break and wasn't able to consolidate."
Bertens came close to beating Barty in the China Open semifinals in Beijing this month, losing in a third-set tiebreaker.
Last year, Bertens reached the semifinals in her WTA Finals debut, bowing to defending champion Elina Svitolina of Ukraine.
The Dutchwoman arrived in Shenzhen straight from losing to Belarus' Aryna Sabalenka in the WTA Elite Trophy final in nearby Zhuhai on Sunday.
Switzerland's Belinda Bencic reacts after beating Petra Kvitova of the Czech Republic 6-3, 1-6, 6-4 in their WTA Finals Red Group match in Shenzhen on Tuesday.
"In the beginning I was a little bit struggling," Bertens said after the 2-hour, 9-minute duel. "As the match was continuing, I felt better and better. The movement was getting a bit better. I was starting to feel the court. I could play a little bit more aggressive, come to the net.
"Yeah, I played pretty well in the end."
Bertens broke serve on a fourth break point in the opening game of the third set, and raced to 4-0.
Despite the loss, Barty officially secured the year-end No. 1 ranking. She's the first Australian woman to earn that distinction.
Only Czech Karolina Pliskova and Japan's Osaka had an opportunity to prevent Barty from finishing the season as the year-end No. 1. They both had to win the title in south China with a perfect record in the round-robin.
Pliskova lost to Svitolina in her opening round-robin match in the Purple Group on Monday.
In the later match, Bencic fought back from a second set spiral to beat Kvitova in 1 hour and 47 minutes. It kept her tournament hopes alive after she had lost her opening match to Barty.
"I was proud that I was able to block away her big shots," Bencic said. "I was happy that at the end I was able to keep calm."
Kvitova's serve went off the boil as she fell away badly in the first set to lose five straight games. A double fault was a fitting way for the Czech to hand Bencic the first set.
But the match flipped in the second set with Kvitova, the 2011 WTA Finals champion, rediscovering her lethal serve to force a decider.
The twists continued in the third set with Bencic breaking in the third game as a flustered Kvitova slammed her racquet on the ground. The Swiss failed to capitalize in the next game but grabbed the decisive break in the ninth before confidently closing it out on serve.
