Romania’s Elena-Gabriela Ruse, Turkish qualifier Zeynep Sonmez and France’s Elsa Jacquemot pulled off upsets as the Australian Open got underway on Sunday in Melbourne.
World No. 1 Aryna Sabalenka of Belarus avoided any hint of a first-round upset, handling France’s Tiantsoa Rakotomanga Rajaonah 6-4, 6-1 thanks to a commanding 23-9 edge in winners.
“I think I didn’t really start at my best and was struggling to find my rhythm,” Sabalenka, a two-time winner of the tournament, said to reporters. “But then I feel like in the last two games of the first set I found my rhythm, and I was able to step in and play a little bit better tennis.”
Sonmez knocked off No. 11 Ekaterina Alexandrova 7-5, 4-6, 6-4. Sonmez, a 23-year-old ranked No. 112 in the world, rallied from down 3-0 in the deciding set to beat her Russian opponent.
Sonmez won six of the final seven games and converted her fourth match point. She became the first Turkish woman in the Open Era to win a match at the Australian Open after becoming the second to reach the main draw.
Prior to her late uprising, Sonmez came to the aid of a ball girl who fainted during the second set.
Alexandrova was serving for the set with the temperature at 29 degrees Celsius (84 Fahrenheit) when the ball girl fell flat on her back near the umpire’s chair at Melbourne Park. She quickly got up but was unsteady on her feet, prompting Sonmez to ask to halt play and help the girl to the side of the court. The girl received medical attention in the shade and play resumed after a six-minute delay.
Ruse swept 26th-seeded Dayana Yastremska of Ukraine 6-4, 7-5.
Ruse nearly suffered a devastating collapse in the second set, jumping out to leads of 4-0 and 5-1 before blowing four match points, getting broken twice, and facing Yastremska’s serve with the match at 5-5. But the 28-year-old Ruse held serve then broke Yastremska one last time to move on.
Jacquemot ousted No. 20 seed Marta Kostyuk of Ukraine 6-7 (4), 7-6 (4), 7-6 (7) in the first triple-tiebreak match at the Australian Open in the Open Era. Jacquemot, ranked No. 60, won the match lasting three hours and 31 minutes for her first career win over a top-20 opponent.
Seven-time Grand Slam champion Venus Williams nearly joined the upset party but settled for a record instead. At age 45 and ranked No. 576 in the world, she became the oldest woman to compete in the Melbourne main draw.
Williams led 4-0 in the third set before falling to 24-year-old Serbian Olga Danilovich 6-7 (5), 6-3, 6-4.
“I’m really proud of my effort today because I’m playing better with each match, getting to the places that I want to get to,” Williams said. “Right now, I’m just going to have to keep going forward and working on myself and working to control my errors.”
No. 7 seed Jasmine Paolini of Italy had little trouble with Russian Aliaksandra Sasnovich, winning 6-1, 6-2. Twelfth-seeded Elina Svitolina of Ukraine swept Spain’s Cristina Bucsa 6-4, 6-1.
Others advancing included American Caty McNally, a 6-3, 6-1 winner over Japan’s Himeno Sakatsume, and Australian Talia Gibson, who beat Russian Anna Blinkova 6-1, 6-3. Kazakhstan’s Julia Putintseva defeated Brazil’s Beatriz Haddad Maia 3-6, 7-5, 6-3 and Greece’s Maria Sakkari rolled 6-4, 6-2 over Leolia Jeanjean of France. Hailey Baptiste outlasted fellow American Taylor Townsend 6-3, 6-7 (3), 6-3.
Austria’s Anastasia Potapova, Uzbekistan’s Polina Kudermetova and China’s Zhuoxuan Bai also moved into the second round.
–Field Level Media
