Peng, Duan out of first round in Roland Garros
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E-mail Xinhua, May 31, 2017
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Peng Shuai of China returns a shot during the women's singles first round match against Sorana Cirstea of Romania at French Open Tennis Tournament 2017 in Roland Garros, Paris, France on May 30, 2017. (Xinhua/Han Yan) |
Peng Shuai and Duan Yingying were eliminated in the first round of the 2017 French Open on Tuesday, meaning that four out of five Chinese women's players lost their chances of staying alive in the tournament.
Peng, whose personal best in 10 previous appearances at Roland Garros reached round three in the main draw, trailed by four going into the match, before finishing her first and only break in the fifth game.
However, Peng could not handle her opponent's high-quality backhand attacks and fell short 6-3 in the first set.
Cirstea used another break to kick off the second set, and only surrendered one game for a lopsided victory.
"I was pretty nervous at the start. It forced me to lose my speed on court, and I was not satisfied with my attacks today," said Peng.
Peng's compatriot Duan Ying Ying also failed to make last 64 after suffering a 6-4, 6-1 loss to the 102nd-ranked Tatjana Maria of Germany.
Duan took three games in a row midway through the first set to erase a three-game deficit, before her poor forehand earned the German a 6-4 victory in the first set.
Duan still could not get back the upper hand in the second set, where Maria pushed out a much more comfortable win.
"She showed her athleticism and precise judgement in the match," Duan said of Maria's performance.
"I played much better in the first set than the past several weeks. It felt a bit slow on clay. My serves didn't go well today," Duan added.
After their elimination in the singles event, Peng and Duan will join forces in Wednesday's doubles first round, facing the duo of Varvara Lepchenko and Evgeniya Rodina.
On the men's side, top seed Andy Murray kicked off his quest for the first title at Roland Garros with a 6-4, 4-6, 6-2, 6-0 victory over Russian Andrey Kuznetsov.
The world No. 1 began to bounce back from his struggling on clay during the past several weeks as he only recorded last 16 in three ATP World Tour Masters 1000 tournaments.
"I started to move a bit better towards the end, and was hitting the ball better when I was defending. That's something the last few weeks I haven't done so well and didn't start off the match doing particularly well," he said.
Promising German youngster Alexander Zverev experienced a disappointing day as he could not continue his in-form performance during the clay season, suffering a 6-4, 3-6, 6-4, 6-2 loss to Fernando Verdasco in an interrupted match. Zverev had earlier moved up into top 10 with his first ATP 1000 title title in Rome.
After his match up against Verdasco scheduled on Monday was halted by darkness with the two players tied 1-1, Zverev lost two sets in a row on Tuesday.
The ninth seed refused to take the interruption as an excuse for his loss to the Spanish veteran. "I played absolute poor. It's quite simple," he said.
Garbine Muguruza, Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic will fight for last 32 berths in Wednesday's singles second round.
Seeded players including Stan Wawrinka, Kei Nishikori and Tomas Berdych, Simona Halep and Elina Svitolina are all through.
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