The only match from the second round played so far was between the 14th seed Kristina Mladenovic and Mirjana Lucic-Baroni of Croatia. Mladenovic is the first player to make a second round exit, after an incredible match lasting 2 hours and 44 minutes. Despite making 15 double faults, Lucic-Baroni managed to win the match, ending the drama 15-13 in the third set tiebreaker.
Other seeded players at action so far today have been to 10th seed Samantha Stosur, defeating the Serbian qualifier Aleksandra Krunic 6-4 6-4, and the 14th seed Daria Kasatkina, who in just a bit over an hour defeated Saisai Zheng 6-2 6-1.
There were three Americans playing so far, two won and one lost. The winners were Bethanie Mattek-Sands, getting past Teliana Pereira in an almost two-and-a-half hour long match 5-7 6-3 6-2, and the wild card Louisa Chirico, defeating the 18-years-old qualifier Naomi Osaka, in a match of two youngsters with a crazy scoreline of 3-6 6-1 6-1. The American who lost today was Madison Brengle, who went down in a surprising upset by the Slovak qualifier with a double handed forehand, Kristina Kucova 5-7 2-6.
Other notable matches included the one of Eugenie Bouchard. The Canadian was in quite a different situation last year, coming into Charleston as the first seed, and this year starting as an unseeded player. She started well in a tough opener against Romania’s Alexandra Dulgheru, winning 6-3 6-4. The other two ‘Rising Stars’ were Monica Puig, advancing through Lucie Hradecka 6-3 6-2, and Yulia Putintseva, winning her opening match against Kurumi Nara 7-6(4) 6-0.
The fastest two matches were won by Yaroslava Shvedova and Shuai Zhang, the recent Australian Open quarterfinalist. Shvedova was the fastest, winning her match against Evgeniya Rodina, 6-1 6-1, in only 54 minutes. Shuai Zhang had to play one game more to eliminate the Dutch qualifier, Lesley Kerkhove after an hour and a minute, winning 6-1 6-2.
