Leylah Fernandez is back in the win column.<\/p>\n
The Canadian beat Russia’s Ekaterina Alexandrova 6-4, 3-6, 6-3 to advance to Round 2 at the Wuhan Open on Monday.<\/p>\n
Fernandez, of Montreal, had lost her opening-round match in her previous tournament in China, making her victory over Alexandrova her first since claiming the Singapore Open title last month.<\/p>\n
She fired eight aces in win victory while taking advantage of nine Alexandrova double-faults. The Canadian also made good on five of nine break-point opportunities while fending off 14 of 19 herself.<\/p>\n
Fernandez will next face China’s Han Shi, who beat 13th-seeded Alex Eala 4-6, 6-3, 6-3.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile,\u00a0Zheng Qinwen\u00a0withdrew from the Wuhan Open citing a shoulder injury, a day after\u00a0winning her first WTA title in two years\u00a0and then celebrating with a bit of karaoke for the crowd at the China Open.<\/p>\n
Olympic gold medallist Zheng and\u00a0French Open champion Mirra Andreeva,\u00a0who lost their China Open final 7-5, 6-4 on Sunday, both pulled out of the 1000-level event in Wuhan.<\/p>\n
\u201cSince returning from injury … I have played a demanding stretch of tennis over the past month and a half, competing at the\u00a0US Open, the Billie Jean King Cup, and the China Open. My body is feeling very fatigued after this intense run of matches,\u201d Zheng said in a statement released by the WTA. \u201cI look forward to returning to the Wuhan Open next year and stepping onto the court in my best possible form.\u201d<\/p>\n
Andreeva, who has risen to No. 3 in the rankings, cited a change in schedule for her absence from Wuhan.<\/p>\n
For Zheng, the win in Beijing continued a long comeback. Zheng\u2019s ranking plummeted due to an elbow injury from a career-high No. 4 last year to 160 this season. She was No. 54 entering her home tournament as a wild-card entry last week, and will now return into the top 30, the WTA said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve been through a very tough year,\u201d Zheng said in English in a trophy presentation that had a touch of karaoke. She sang a pop song to roars of appreciation from fans in the arena.<\/p>\n
Both players were replaced in the Wuhan draw by so-called \u201clucky losers\u201d from qualifying. Anna Bondar replaced Andreeva and Camila Orosio replaced Zheng.<\/p>\n
–with files from The Associated Press<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Leylah Fernandez is back in the win column. The Canadian beat Russia’s Ekaterina Alexandrova 6-4, 3-6, 6-3 to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":930509,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[442],"tags":[49,48,82,593],"class_list":["post-930508","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-sports","tag-tennis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/930508","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=930508"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/930508\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/930509"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=930508"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=930508"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=930508"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}