Third seed Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova has suffered a surprise 6-2,6-2, loss to French qualifier Pauline Parmentier in the first round of the Monterrey Open.
Pavlyuchenkova has an impressive record at the tournament after claiming the title on three previous occasions in 2010, 2011 and 2013. In her last appearance at the tournament in 2014, she reached the quarterfinals. The Monterrey Open is the only tournament where the Russian has won the title on three different occasions in her career.
Despite her encouraging results at the tournament in previous years, she failed in reproduced that form in her first round match. The Russian struggled with her serve throughout the match, winning just 40% of her service points. The below-par serving from the Russian enabled Parmentier to break the world No.26 six times during the match.
The Frenchwoman had a dominating 6-2, 2-0, lead before rain forced both players off the court. Despite the break, Parmentier continued her dominant offensive when she returned to the court as she edged closer to victory. The world No.118 did slightly falter towards the end of the match. Serving at 5-1, Parmentier squandered a match point by producing a double fault before being broken by the third seed. The blip was only a minor lapse for the French player after she broke Pavlyuchenkova in the following game to seal the win.
Parmentier had to win three rounds of qualifying to reach the main draw in Mexico. Discussing her win during an on-court interview, the Frenchwoman was delighted with her performance.
“I played a really good match. I was not tight at all. I played really good with my spin on the forehand, which she had problems with”. Parmentier said during her on-court interview.
“To win this match after coming back from the rain delay wasn’t easy”. She later added.
The reward for Parmentier will be a second round meeting with Monica Puig. The Puerto Rican battled her way past Mexican world No.236 Marcela Zacarias 6-2, 7-5.
Eighth seed Timea Babos was another player to suffer a disappointing exit. The Hungarian served five double faults and failed to generate a single break point opportunity as she lost 6-3, 6-3, to Polona Hercog in just over an hour.
Completing the trio of seeded casualties was seventh seed Danka Kovinic, who lost 7-5, 6-2, to Nicole Gibbs. The 21-year-old old struggled to get her first serve in, recording a poor 40% success rate. Kovinic also produced six costly double faults during her first round loss.
Second seed Caroline Wozniacki was due to start her Monterrey campaign on Tuesday against Olga Govortsova, however, the match has been postponed until Wednesday due to poor weather conditions.
