ADELAIDE, AUSTRALIA (AP) – American Amanda Anisimova made the best of her lucky loser ticket by beating Russian Liudmila Samsonova 7-5, 6-3 yesterday in the first round of the Adelaide International to claim her first win in the main draw of a WTA tournament since August.
Anisimova reached the quarterfinals at Wimbledon last year and is a former French Open semifinalist, ranked number 29. But she had to make her way through qualifying and a lucky loser second chance to reach the second round of the Adelaide tournament.
The 21-year-old won only three games before losing to fourth-seeded Veronika Kudermetova in the first round at Adelaide last week, meaning she had to qualify for the main draw this week.
Yesterday, she took advantage of Samsonova’s shaky serve who had seven double faults – she was broken five times – to advance to the second round where she will face Beatriz Haddad Maia.
On the men’s side, American Tommy Paul beat Australian Christopher O’Connell 6-4, 7-5 in Paul’s first match of the year. Paul reached the quarterfinals of both Adelaide tournaments last year.
“First match of the season is always a little tough and everyone has nerves going into the first match,” Paul said. “So I was happy to go out and play the way that I did. I didn’t really do too much wrong and I served well.” Barbora Krejcikova carried over her strong finish to 2022 by beating last year’s finalist Alison Riske-Amritraj 6-2, 7-6 (3). Krejcikova won two titles and nine of her last 10 singles matches in 2022.
She will face fifth-seeded Daria Kasatkina. Krejcikova let a match point slip at 5-4 in the second set but won five straight points in the tiebreaker to seal victory.
Former Australian Open champion Sofia Kenin has won her first round match at the Hobart International, beating Lin Zhu in straight sets 6-2, 6-2.
