A recent practice session with the great Serena Williams may have paid off for Alycia Parks, who took down Russian 15th seed Diana Shnaider 1-6, 6-4, 7-6 (5) to begin the Qatar TotalEnergies Open on Sunday in Doha.
Parks, an American ranked 85th in the world, recently told the website Tennis Majors that she considers Williams a “mentor” and said the 44-year-old tennis icon is in great shape and “would kill it on tour” if she weren’t retired.
But Sunday was about Parks showing her own stuff. She shook off her first-set loss and won on her first match point in the tightly contested third-set tiebreaker. Parks finished with an 11-0 edge in aces.
Parks had to win in the qualifying round to make the 56-woman main draw. She actually knocked Shnaider out in the first round at Doha last year before repeating the feat Sunday.
“I’m actually pretty match-ready,” Parks, 25, told Tennis Majors before the main draw. “I’m just riding the wave of having matches under my belt from Ostrava (last week’s tournament). My season has started good. I think I needed that mental break for offseason. So now I’m actually ready to play.”
The highest seed in action on the first day of the tournament was Canadian 10th seed Victoria Mboko, who beat Czech opponent Marie Bouzkova 7-5, 6-2. Mboko overcame six double faults without an ace, saving 4 of 7 break points while converting 6 of 11 opportunities to break Bouzkova’s serve.
Poland’s Magdalena Frech upset No. 13 seed Liudmila Samsonova of Russia 6-3, 4-6, 7-6 (7). Samsonova had three match points in the third set, two of them during the tiebreaker, but Frech saved them all before pushing ahead and winning on her first match point.
Czech 14th seed Karolina Muchova beat Romania’s Jaqueline Cristian 6-2, 6-3. No. 16 seed Elise Mertens of Belgium sailed 6-2, 6-1 past Russian Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova in 68 minutes.
Russian 41-year-old Vera Zvonareva pushed past American Peyton Stearns 2-6, 6-2, 6-3. Other winners on Day 1 included France’s Varvara Gracheva, Italian Elisabetta Cocciaretto, Poland’s Magda Linette, Karolina Pliskova of the Czech Republic, Australian Daria Kasatkina and American Ann Li.
–Field Level Media
