ZHUHAI: Slovakia’s Magdalena Rybarikova clinched her first victory of the WTA Elite Trophy on Wednesday, beating top seed Kristina Mladenovic 7-5, 1-6, 7-6 (7-5) in a thrilling encounter lasting two hours and 48 minutes.

The 10th-seeded Rybarikova, who had lost her opening match to Julia Goerges in the Azalea group, made an impressive start, firing two aces on her way to winning the first set over her French opponent.

The 29-year-old, ranked 22 in the world, struggled with injury during the majority of the second set, and after ceding a 4-1 lead, took a medical timeout.

Mladenovic, unaffected by the break, raced to a second set win, in which she hit 13 winners and only five unforced errors.

The players exchanged early breaks in the final set but Rybarikova clinched the decisive lead in the tiebreak, before sealing the victory on her seventh match point.

“I am happy that I went through this match because conditions were tough and I had some problems with my leg,” Rybarikova said after the match.

“I was saying to myself that I had to win this match because I had so many match points and it would be really cruel to end the season like this.”

Twenty-four-year-old Mladenovic, ranked at a career-high number 10, will now have to beat Goerges in their match later in the week to have any chances to reach the final four.

“[There were] ups and downs from my side, but... there’s a lot of things to take out from this match, lots of positives,” Mladenovic told journalists.

But her first-match loss in Zhuhai also follows a recent poor run, including an upset by Croatian Jana Fett at the Japan Women’s Open in September, where she was again top seed.

Earlier in the season she reached the semi-finals at Indian Wells — a result which saw her break into the world top 20 for the first time, temporarily overtaking Caroline Garcia as French number one.

“[It was] a pretty unique season,” she said. “The second part is dramatic, is terrible. The first part is also dramatic but in a positive way.”

Australia’s Ashleigh Barty moved to the top of the Rose Group with a convincing 6-4, 6-1 win over Anastasia Pavlyuc­henkova.

Barty, the tournament’s youngest player and ninth seed, broke the Russian’s serve four times and served nine aces in the victory and will qualify for the semi-finals outright, should she beat Angelique Kerber on Thursday.

The 21-year-old, who began the year ranked outside the top 300, made the final in Wuhan and recently became Australia’s top player.

“I feel like I’m playing really well this whole year,” she told media, adding that she wants to finish “strong”.

“To qualify for this week is just a massive bonus. And now to get a win, I can just look forward to the match tomorrow and try and go out there and play with freedom again.”

On Thursday she faces German Angelique Kerber who she met in Brisbane at the start of the season. Kerber, then world number one, survived a big scare from the Australian wildcard entry.

“I think I’m in a bit of a different position than I was in January when we played against each other,” Barty, now ranked 20 in the world, said.

Latvia’s Anastasija Sevastova cruised past reigning US Open champion Sloane Stephens 7-5, 6-3 in one hour and 28 minutes in the Camillea group to avenge her quarter-final loss in New York.

It was the third successive defeat for Stephens, seeded third in the tournament, since winning the US Open.

Stephens, 24, was a first-round loser at the Wuhan Open and the China Open in Beijing before pulling out of Hong Kong, but insisted Monday she wasn’t feeling under pressure.

“I don’t think I played terribly,” she said of Wednesday’s match. “I was happy to be playing better than my last matches, so that’s a good thing.”

The tournament in Zhuhai features the leading players on the women’s tour who didn’t qualify for the WTA Finals in Singapore last week. The 12-player tournament is divided into four groups of three, with the winner of each group advancing to the semi-finals.

Published in Dawn, November 2nd, 2017