Four-time Grand Slam champion Naomi Osaka, Elise Mertens, former world No. 5 Zheng Qinwen and Anna Kalinskaya were among the notable first-round winners at the Bad Homburg Open on Monday, while French Open semifinalist Diana Shnaider suffered a straight-sets defeat to Clara Tauson.<\/p>\n
Bad Homburg:\u00a0Scores<\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0Order of play<\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0Draws<\/a><\/p>\n Here are some key takeaways from the action in Bad Homburg today:<\/p>\n Osaka wins rain-delayed match; to face Mertens for spot in quarterfinals<\/p>\n In a match carried over from Sunday because of bad weather, former world No. 1 Osaka opened her bid for a first career grass-court final with a 6-4, 6-1 victory over Poland’s Magdalena Frech.<\/p>\n The match was suspended with Osaka leading 5-4 in the opening set. When play resumed Monday, the Japanese player dominated, winning seven of the final eight games to seal the victory in 1 hour, 34 minutes.<\/p>\n A key statistic from the match was Frech winning just 21.4% of points on her second serve, compared with 60% for Osaka.<\/p>\n Osaka’s best grass-court result remains her semifinal run in Nottingham in 2018, where she lost to eventual champion Ash Barty. She will next face Elise Mertens for a place in the quarterfinals.<\/p>\n Mertens halted a red-hot Alexandra Eala later Monday, coming from a break drown in the first set and winning eight straight games across the first and second sets to advance with a 6-3, 6-3 win in 1 hour, 24 minutes. The victory extends the Belgian’s perfect record in WTA Tour Driven by Mercedes-Benz opening matches this season to 12-0.<\/p>\n Osaka and Mertens have squared off seven times, with Osaka holding a 4-3 advantage. Mertens won their most recent meeting in Toronto in 2024, but Osaka claimed their lone grass-court matchup at ‘s-Hertogenbosch earlier that year.<\/p>\n Tauson knocks out former champion Shnaider<\/p>\n In a marquee first-round clash between two Top 25 players, world No. 25 Clara Tauson upset the seventh-seeded Shnaider 6-4, 6-4 in 1 hour, 45 minutes.<\/p>\n The Dane converted four of her 10 break-point opportunities, while Shnaider, the 2024 champion, capitalized on only two of six chances.<\/p>\n The victory marked Tauson’s first grass-court win of the season after opening-round exits in ‘s-Hertogenbosch and Berlin. It also snapped a seven-match losing streak for the Dane. Shnaider, meanwhile, heads into Wimbledon having lost both of her opening-round matches on grass this year.<\/p>\n The win leveled the head-to-head series at 1-1. Tauson will next face Zheng in the second round.<\/p>\n Zheng earns three-set victory over Sierra<\/p>\n Serving as the precursor to the Venus Williams vs. Irina-Camelia Begu match on Centre Court, Zheng earned a morale-boosting win over Argentine qualifier Solana Sierra to reach the second round.<\/p>\n Now ranked No. 153 after undergoing elbow surgery last July and playing only one tournament before February this year, Zheng needed 2 hours, 23 minutes to overcome Sierra 7-5, 4-6, 6-4.<\/p>\n Tauson leads the head-to-head against Zheng 1-0, but this will be their first meeting on grass.<\/p>\n Kalinskaya, Wang also advance<\/p>\n In other first-round matches, Kalinskaya defeated Austrian qualifier Sinja Kraus 6-4, 6-1 to reach the second round.<\/p>\n Kalinskaya will next face either fifth-seeded Linda Noskova, who won the Berlin Open on Sunday, or qualifier Elena-Gabriela Ruse.<\/p>\n China’s Xinyu Wang also advanced, defeating lucky loser Renata Zarazua 6-1, 6-2. Wang will face Canada’s Leylah Fernandez for a place in the last eight.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Four-time Grand Slam champion Naomi Osaka, Elise Mertens, former world No. 5 Zheng Qinwen and Anna Kalinskaya were…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":754832,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[442],"tags":[49,48,82,593,5452],"class_list":["post-754831","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-sports","tag-tennis","tag-text"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/754831","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=754831"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/754831\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/754832"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=754831"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=754831"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=754831"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}