The Opening day of the Wuhan Open saw Switzerland’s title hopes comes to an unfortunate end after Belinda Bencic and Timea Bacsinszky was forced to withdraw from their matches.
Former top 10 player Bencic was engaged in a close battle with ninth seed Svetlana Kuznetsova before being forced to quit the match midway through the match. Breaking for a 4-2 lead in the second set, the Swiss suffered a fall on the court onto her back. The impact of the fall resulted in her retirement.
“I felt it in exactly the same place where I was injured – I think its the coccyx bone. I’m going to get some tests to figure out more, and we will see.” Bencic said about the injury.
Earlier this year, the 19-year-old has hampered by a back injury, forcing her to withdraw from a series of events. More recently, Bencic has also been troubled by a wrist injury, which resulted in her missing almost two months of the tour after Wimbledon.
Fed cup team mate Bacsinszky also withdrew during her match against Louisa Chirico, but not because of injury. Trailing 3-6, 3-4, to the American, the 12th seed called it quits due to a viral illness. Since the start of August, the former French Open semifinalist has only been able to win two matches on the tour.
Besides the Swiss misery, there was triumph for Italy’s Roberta Vinci, who defeated Olympic champion Monica Puig 6-3, 6-3. The world No.15 only faced two break points during the entire match, saving both of them.
Vinci’s victory comes as Puig struggles to reproduce her recent form, which took her to the gold medal in the Rio Olympic Games last month.
“It was a tough first round. I didn’t necessarily play my best tennis,” Puig told reporters after the Wuhan match.
“It’s kind of hard when you have to focus on other things, other tournaments, and everybody keep bringing you back to Rio.”
Awaiting Vinci in the second round will be Yaroslava Shvedova. The Kazakh player dropped just three games as she eased her way past Chinese wildcard Zheng Saisai 6-0, 6-3.
Full list of results
Y Wickmayer (BEL) bt S Rogers (USA) 6-3, 7-61
Y Shvedova (KAZ) bt S Zheng (CHN) 6-0, 6-3
L Siegemund (GER) bt D Kovinic (MNE) 6-77, 7-5, 6-4
K Siniakova (CZE) bt T Babos (HUN) 6-3, 7-5
I Begu (ROU) bt E Kulichkova (RUS) 4-6, 7-64, 6-2
L Safarova (CZE) bt V Lepchenko (USA) 7-5, 6-3
S Kuznetsova (RUS) (9) bt B Bencic (SUI) 6-3, 3-4 retired
R Vinci (ITA) (13) bt M Puig (PUE) 6-3, 6-3
L Chirico (USA) bt T Bacsinszky (SUI) (12) 6-3, 4-3 retired
E Makarova (RUS) bt S Lisicki (GER) 6-1, 6-2
