BEIJING: US Open champion Flavia Pennetta struggled in her first match since winning her maiden Grand Slam, needing nearly 2½ hours to beat Chinese wild card Han Xinyun 7-5, 4-6, 6-4 in the first round of the China Open on Sunday.

Top-seeded Simona Halep of Romania retired from her match against Spain’s Lara Arruabarrena with a recurring Achilles injury while trailing 5-4 in the first set. It was one of four retirements among the women on the second day of the tournament.

Fourth-seeded Agnieszka Radwanska advanced when Coco Vandeweghe quit after dropping the first set 6-3, and seventh-seeded Carla Suarez Navarro of Spain moved on when Lesia Tsurenko of Ukraine retired after also losing the first set 6-3.

Kazakhstan’s Zarina Diyas also retired after dropping the first set against Puerto Rico’s Monica Puig 6-4.

Also, Sara Errani of Italy upset second-seeded Petra Kvitova 7-5, 6-4 and Sloane Stephens of the United States defeated ninth-seeded Karolina Pliskova of the Czech Republic 6-3, 6-2.

Former world number one Caroline Wozniacki beat Serbian qualifier Bojana Jovanovski 6-2, 6-4 to reach the second round.

On Saturday, sixth-seeded Ana Ivanovic made a rip-roaring start to the tournament, reeling off 10 games in a row to beat a shell-shocked Casey Dellacqua 6-4, 6-0 and set up a second-round match with Venus Williams.

In other matches, 12th-seeded Timea Bacsinszky of Switzerland, Wang Qiang of China, Teliana Pereira of Brazil, two-time Beijing champion Svetlana Kuznetsova of Russia and Madison Keys of the United States all advanced.

Published in Dawn, October 5th , 2015

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