{"id":654491,"date":"2026-06-23T19:08:09","date_gmt":"2026-06-23T19:08:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/654491\/"},"modified":"2026-06-23T19:08:09","modified_gmt":"2026-06-23T19:08:09","slug":"harriet-dart-alicia-dudeney-bow-out-in-opening-round-at-eastbourne","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/654491\/","title":{"rendered":"Harriet Dart & Alicia Dudeney bow out in opening round at Eastbourne"},"content":{"rendered":"

It wasn\u2019t to be for the Brits at the Lexus Eastbourne Open WTA 250 event as wild cards Harriet Dart and Alicia Dudeney lost in the first round.\n<\/p>\n

Dart<\/a> served for the match in the decider, but a late comeback from Zeynep Sonmez saw the Tunisian edge a 4-6, 6-2, 7-5 victory to reach the second round.<\/p>\n

The 29-year-old was making her 10th appearance in Eastbourne and was hoping to surpass her career-best run of the quarter-finals that she achieved in 2022 and 2024.<\/p>\n

Competing in her first match since being crowned Lexus Nottingham Open<\/a> doubles champion with Maia Lumsden, Dart made a convincing start – taking the opening set inside an hour.<\/p>\n

However, the world No.54 surged through the second set – breaking the world No.151 three times on her way to levelling the match to a set apiece.<\/p>\n

The pair tussled for momentum in the decider, exchanging seven breaks of serve before Dart brought up the opportunity to serve for the match at 5-3. Another twist saw Sonmez level once again as she broke to 15 before winning three games on the bounce to steal the win from Dart’s grasp.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, wild card Dudeney lost out on her Eastbourne debut in a career-first meeting against Spain\u2019s Jessica Bouzas Maneiro.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

The 23-year-old was bidding to clinch her first WTA main draw win but lost out 6-0, 6-3 on Court 2.<\/p>\n

Dudeney last played at Devonshire Park in 2022 where she lost out to recent HSBC Championships<\/a> winner Donna Vekic in the qualifying rounds.<\/p>\n

The Briton struggled behind on serve, landing just 46% of her first serves in and the Spaniard capitalised – winning 78% of points on the second serve return (21\/27).<\/p>\n

Dudeney showed her fight to come back from an early break down in the second and draw level at 2-2 before backing up the break with a hold to love. However, Bouzas Maneiro continued to apply the pressure on the return and was rewarded with a double break as she reeled off the last four games in a row to seal victory.<\/p>\n

Despite the loss, Dudeney will now turn her focus to next week\u2019s Wimbledon<\/a>, where she\u2019s set to make her Grand Slam main draw debut.<\/p>\n

The Brit received a wild card off the back of an impressive season that has seen her seal four singles and three doubles titles on the ITF Tour – leading her to a career-high ranking of world No.208.<\/p>\n

Catch up on the latest results from Eastbourne<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It wasn\u2019t to be for the Brits at the Lexus Eastbourne Open WTA 250 event as wild cards…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":654492,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38],"tags":[101,118,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-654491","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-sports","tag-tennis","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/654491","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=654491"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/654491\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/654492"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=654491"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=654491"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=654491"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}