SINGAPORE (Oct 25): The premier tournament for the world’s top women’s tennis players is off to a roaring start, with large crowds packing the Singapore Indoor Stadium on the first two days of the 2016 BNP Paribas WTA Finals Singapore presented by SC Global.
All eight women have now played a match each in their respective groups. In the Red Group, Simona Halep commenced proceedings by defeating Madison Keys in straight sets for a routine win, while world number one, Angelique Kerber, had a harder time in defeating Dominika Cibulkova.
Kerber needed three sets to quell the hard-fighting Slovakian, finally beating her 7-6, 2-6, 6-3, in a match that stretched more than two hours.
The second day saw the action swing over to the White Group where the defending champion, Agnieszka Radwanska, was upset by late qualifier Svetlana Kuznetsova, who arrived in Singapore only one day before she was due to play, after winning a tournament in Moscow.
In a match of see-sawing fortunes, Kuznetsova even resorted to snipping off a portion of her ponytail which was swishing around and hindering her vision, before triumphing 7-5, 1-6, 7-5.
The other match in the White Group saw Karolina Pliskova pitted against Garbiñe Muguruza. What resulted was a slugfest that ended in thrilling fashion after 1am on Tuesday morning.
Pliskova came back from 2-5 down in the third set to defeat her Spanish opponent 6-2, 6-7, 7-5. She had to win 20 of the last 24 points of the third set in order to eventually prevail. “I'm very happy that I made it. This doesn't happen every day,” Pliskova said later at a 2am media conference following her match.
Tuesday night’s matches return to the Red Group again with Kerber taking on Halep while Keys will play Cibulkova. Doubles matches featuring the top eight pairs in women’s tennis will only take place from Thursday onwards.
Fans who wish to catch the action may still purchase limited tickets to matches for the remaining days of the tournament through www.wtafinals.com.
