Sloane Stephens, Liudmila Samsonova and Yulia Putintseva secured first round wins on Day 1 at the BNP Paribas Open at Indian Wells.
Stephens came back from a set and a break down to beat Heather Watson 6-7 (5-7) 6-1. The US player reeled off seven consecutive games from 5-5 in the second set to secure the win in 2 hours and 51 minutes.
Stephens beat Watson for the third time in eight head-to-head matches and for the first time on hard courts.
“Playing Heather is always a tough match. We grew up playing juniors together, and we are really good friends. She is always a super tough opponent and I look forward to playing her. I just competed very well. After the first set, that was disappointing to lose that one, but I felt like it was a battle and I was still in the match. I knew I had to keep fighting and that’s what I did, and I am just pleased to have sqeaked out a win here”, said Stephens.
Stephens set up an all American second round match against her compatriot Jessica Pegula. They will meet for the first time on the WTA Tour with the goal to secure a spot in the third round.
This year’s Budapest winner and Astana finalist Yulia Putintseva beat Andrea Petkovic 7-6 (7-2) 6-1. Putintseva went up a break three times in the opening set. The Kazakh player won the last three points to win the tie-break 7-2 with four mini-breaks before cruising through to a 6-1 win in the second set with two breaks in the second and sixth games. Putintseva set up a second round match against her compatriot Elena Rybakina.
This year’s Berlin champion Liudmila Samsonova came back from a break down in her 6-4 7-6 (8-6) win over Ukrainian qualifier Katerina Kozlova. Samsonova went down a break in the seventh game to trail 3-4, but she rallied by winning three consecutive games to take the first set 6-4 with two breaks of serve.
Samsonova went up a break in the sixth game to take a 4-2 lead. Kozlova broke twice in the seventh and ninth game to take a 5-4 lead, but Samsonova fended off a set point when Kozlova was serving for the set and converted her fifth break-back point to draw level to 5-5.
Samsonova sealed the tie-break 8-6 on her third match point after leading 3-0 setting up an all-Russian match against Veronika Kudemertova.
