LONDON — No. 6 seed Yuan Yue of China came back from down 3-0 in the second set to win the last six games of the match and defeat former world No. 1 Simona Halep of Romania in the opening round of the Hong Kong Tennis Open.
Yue fired 22 winners and committed 12 unforced errors to beat Halep 6-3, 6-3.
The home court was also kind to China’s Wang Xiyu, who came from 3-1 down in the second set to beat American qualifier Hina Inoue, 6-3, 7-6 (2). Also, Chinese qualifier Shi Han defeated Margarita Gasparyan in straight sets.
Yuan fired 22 winners and committed only 12 unforced errors as she overpowered the 33-year-old former World No.1, rattling off the last six games in a row to set up a second-round meeting with either Nao Hibino or lucky loser Lu Jia-Jing.
In her on-court interview afterwards, she admitted that she had been “nervous” ahead of the match, but reminded herself that she had to “keep going to play to win this.”
Halep made her return from a doping suspension of nine months — reduced from an original four years — in Miami in March, losing to Paula Badosa in the first round.
However, a left knee injury forced her to retire against McCartney Kessler in the first round of the Paris WTA 125 event in May and sidelined her for another four months.
Four weeks ago, Halep notched her first match win since 2022 in the Hong Kong WTA 125 tournament in three sets against Arina Rodionova before falling 6-2, 6-1 to Anna Blinkova in the second round.
On the same courts for this week’s WTA 250 event, playing her fourth tournament and fifth match of the year, she was unable to replicate the result against No.45-ranked Yuan.
Halep was intermittently able to out-manoeuvre the Chinese 26-year-old, who claimed her first Hologic WTA Tour title in Austin this year.
But by and large, Yuan was able to hit through Halep’s defenses, using heavy forehands to pull the Romanian wide off court and creating the open space.
Halep’s own rust also showed in 19 unforced errors, which outweighed her 17 winners. Despite Yuan’s brief dip in form at the start of the second set, once she found her groove she rolled to victory.
During the six-game streak with which she wrapped up the match, Yuan did not face game point. “Was not bad at all, but the opponent was playing really well and she had confidence,” Halep said according to wtatennis.com.
“I would say I’m not happy with the way I played, but it’s much better than previous matches so I’m just taking the positives. Body is tired, but it’s normal because I had such a long break. It’s better than last time, so I take it as a positive.”
“[The schedule] depends on wild cards, doesn’t depend on me,” she added. “About the off-season, I just want to work harder than I did these few weeks, because I really need a stronger body to perform at this level.”
Another home crowd favourite was not so lucky. No. 4 Xinyu Wang couldn’t hold on against France’s Jessika Ponchet, who pulled off a come-from-behind 4-6, 7-5, 6-2 win. Also winning Monday in Hong Kong were Australian Priscilla Hon and Bernarda Pera.
Russian Elena Pridankina defeated Germany’s Ella Seidel 6-3, 7-6 (6) for her first WTA main-draw victory in the opening round in Jiujiang, China, Reuters reported.
Pridankina, 19, ranked a career-high No. 179, saved three set points in the second set to earn the win.
No. 1 seed Marie Bouzkova of the Czech Republic had to come back from an early break down in both sets to finish off Filipina Alexandra Eala 7-5, 7-6 (4).
No. 5 seed Kamilla Rakhimova of Russia trailed 5-1 in the third set against Croatian Petra Martic before reeling off the next six games and winning 6-1, 4-6, 7-5 without ever facing match point.
Other winners included No. 4 seed Jessica Bouzas Maneiro of Spain, who beat Kazakh Zarina Diyas in straight sets, and No. 6 seed Arantxa Rus of the Netherlands who edged Ukrainian Yuliia Starodubtseva 6-4, 6-7 (2), 6-3.
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