Latvian women’s tennis first racket Alona Ostapenko on Thursday in the second round of the Ostrava “Premier” qualifying tournament with a result of 4-6, 4-6 suffered a loss to the Tunisian representative Onsa Žabera.
Ostapenko ranks 44th in the WTA rank and participated in the tournament as a special invitation recipient, but Zabier is 32nd.
Achieving the second round Ostapenko will give 55 WTA ranking points.
The match was won by a Tunisian, but in the next four games the tennis players exchanged for a break. Once again, Jabera Ostapenko’s service was broken in the tenth game, when he won the set with 6-4.
In the introduction of the second set, both tennis players performed their services, but then a series of six breaks followed, which was stopped by Žabér in the ninth game with a victory at their service – 5-4. In the following game, Ostapenko played three breakballs, but in the fourth attempt the opponent scored a point.
Ostapenko made three double mistakes in this match, but the opponent had five. Jabera also performed six elusive services, while Ostapenko was without “aisles” this time.
In the first round in Ostrava, the Latvian tennis player on Wednesday defeated Petra Martich, the Croatian representative with the fifth number, who is in the 18th place – 6-3, 6-1.
Meanwhile, Žaberas beat his home team Barbora Strīcova (WTA 37) 6.6, 6-2 no less convincingly.
The two tennis players have previously met each other once, with the Latvian tennis player winning 6-3, 6-4 in the quarterfinals of the ITF 75,000 series single-player tournament taking place in Sobota, Poland.
Ostapenko’s tournament was the fourth after the season resumed.
In Ostrava, she has already overcome the first round of doubles, because on Monday, in a pair with the Russian Vera Zvonarjov, they defeated Victoria Azarenko from Belarus 1-6, 6-4, 10: 4 and the Czech Karolina Muhov.
After the fight against Jabera Ostapenko, he will have to go to the court again on Thursday – in a doubles match.
This season, Ostapenko’s balance in WTA single-player tournaments is 8-7, but in doubles – 12-6.
Meanwhile, Jabera has accumulated a balance of 23-10 in singles this season.
Ostapenko’s opponent plays steadily, and only in the first tournament of the year in the Shenzhen “International” series and in the Rome “Premier 5” series tournament were left without victories. In the biggest competition of the year, she has reached the quarterfinals of the Australian Open, with 4-6, 4-6 conceding the next American winner, Sofia Kenina, but knocking out the 12th numbered British athlete Joanna Kontu and the 27th numbered Chinese athlete Cian Vanu.
In the US Open, the Tunisian conceded to Kenina in second place in the third round – 6-7 (4: 7), 3-6, but the “French Open” reached the eighth final, where he did not overcome the barrier of other American Daniel Collins (WTA 57) – 4- 6, 6-4, 4-6, before knocking out the eighth racket of the tournament, Belarusian Arina Sabalenk, from the fight for the trophy.
After the resumption of the competition at the end of the summer, this is already the sixth tournament for a Tunisian woman, accumulating a balance of 12-5 during this time.
Meanwhile, Sevastova, which ranks 54th in the WTA ranking, has finished the season.
The Ostrava Open tournament takes place on a hard surface.
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