Qualifier Fernanda Contreras Gomez of Mexico won her first-ever main-draw match in a WTA tournament, ousting American Sofia Kenin 7-6 (7), 6-4 in the first round of the Toray Pan Pacific Open in Tokyo on Tuesday.
Defending champion Naomi Osaka moved on to the second round after playing just one game. She was up 1-0, 30-30 when Daria Saville of Australia was forced to retire when she sustained a knee injury after leaping to hit a forehand shot. Osaka won her home-country tournament in 2019, and it hasn’t been played since because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Osaka will meet No. 5 seed Beatriz Haddad Maia of Brazil, who defeated wild card Yuki Naito of Japan 6-4, 6-2, an opponent playing in her second WTA main-draw match. Also moving on were No. 6 Karolina Pliskova of the Czech Republic and Shuai Zhang of China.
Hana Bank Korea Open
Top seed Jelena Ostapenko of Latvia needed three sets and a tiebreaker to defeat home-country favorite Boyoung Jeong, ranked No. 688 in the world, 6-4, 3-6, 7-6 (2) in Seoul.
Ostapenko had a chance to serve for the match at 5-4 in the third set, but Jeong held her to love to tie the match at five games each. Both players held serve in their next games to send the first-round match to a tiebreaker.
No. 2 seed Ekaterina Alexandrova of Russia also needed three sets to move on, defeating American Asia Muhammad 6-1, 3-6, 6-3 in one hour, 34 minutes. Another Russian, Anastasia Gasanova, topped Australian Astra Sharma in straight sets.
Tatjana Maria of Germany advanced with a straight-sets win over Eugenie Bouchard of Canada, while Victoria Jimenez Kasintseva of Andorra ousted Chloe Paquet of France.
–Field Level Media
