Celine Naef, a 17-year-old from Switzerland, won her WTA main draw debut on Tuesday at the Libema Open at ‘s-Hertogenbosch, Netherlands, and had to come from behind against a legend to do it.
Nervous at the outset of her biggest outing ever, Naef was down a set and a break against seven-time Grand Slam winner Venus Williams, but she turned the match around to win 3-6, 7-6 (3), 6-2 in two hours, 18 minutes. Both Naef and the 42-year-old Williams were wild-card entrants at the grass-court tournament.
With her younger sister Serena in the crowd, Venus Williams took a 3-2 lead in the second set. But Naef fought back to send the match to a tiebreak, with Williams making three unforced errors. Naef took control early in the deciding set, helped by 16 unforced errors by Williams in the final frame — 41 in all during the match.
Next up for Naef in the second round is another American, No. 8 seed Caty McNally, who defeated Katie Volynets 6-2, 6-1 in 65 minutes.
Other winners in the first round included No. 4 seed Ekaterina Alexandrova, who topped fellow Russian Evgeniya Rodina 6-3, 6-4; No.6 seed Bianca Andreescu of Canada, who beat Turkish qualifier Zeynep Sonmez 6-4, 6-4; and No. 7 seed Aliaksandra Sasnovich of Belarus, who eliminated Italy’s Lucrezia Stefanini 6-0, 6-3.
Rothesay Open
Daria Snigur of Ukraine upset No. 2 seed Beatriz Haddad Maia of Brazil 6-4, 6-3 in first-round play at Nottingham, Great Britain.
After reaching the semifinals of the French Open last week, the Brazilian reached the top 10 in world rankings for the first time this week at No. 10. Yet, it was the No. 157 Snigur who came out on top, helped by five service breaks that prevented Maia for winning more than one game in a row.
No. 3 seed Magda Linette of Poland advanced with a 6-4, 6-4 win over Olivia Gadecki, Australia, and No. 5 seed Anhelina Kalinina of Ukraine eliminated Spain’s Nuria Parrizas Diaz 7-5, 6-3.
Other winners included Brits Harriet Dart, Katie Boulter and Jodie Anna Burrage. Viktorija Golubic defeated Jil Teichmann 6-4, 6-3 in an all-Swiss clash.
–Field Level Media
