The top-seeded Beatriz Haddad Maia (Brazil) lost in the start of the WTA 250 Jiangxi Open in Nanchang, China. The Brazilian tennis player lost to Nao Hibino (Japan) by 2-0 (7:6, 6:3) in 2:05 hours of play.
Beatriz Haddad Maia started strongly the match and made a break already in the fourth game of the first set to take a lead of 3:1 and at her serve extended her advance to 4:1. Howeever, her Japanese opponent won four games in a row to turnover the score to 5:4. Beatriz Haddad Maia equalized to 5:5 and after exchanging another break for each of them, the set entered into a tiebreak, which Nao Hibino won undoubtedly by 7-2.
The second set started with an exchange of a break for both players. Nao Hibino succeeded to make another break in the sixth game to lead by 4:2, which p[roved to be enough for her to close the set at 6:3.
In the next round, Nao Hibino will face Kimberly Birrell (Australia), who eliminated Sijia Wei (China) after 2-0 (7:5, 7:5).
The second-seeded Magda Linette (Poland) is also out of the tournament after losing in the first round to Valeria Savinykh (Russia) by 1-2 (5:7, 6:3, 6:7). In the next round, the Russian tennis player will face Aliaksandra Sasnovich (Belarus), who eliminated Viktoria Hruncakova (Slovakia) by 2-0 (6:1, 6:3).
The third-seeded Marie Bouzkova (Czech republic) qualified for the second round after defeating Kathinka von Deichmann (Liechtenstein) by 2-1 (6:1, 6:1), as well as her compatriot Katerina Siniakova, who eliminated Yuhan Wang (China) by 2-0 (6:3, 6:3).
The 6th-seeded Anna Blinkova (Russia) is also out of the tournament, losing to Xiaodi You (China) by 0-2 (1:6, 1:6).
In the other matches from the day, Laura Siegemund (Germany) defeated Xinyu Wang (China) by 2-0 (6:1, 7:5), while Varvara Gracheva (France) eliminated Kamilla Rakhimova (Russia) by 2-0 (6:3, 6:4) and Leylah Fernandez (Canada) won her opening match of the tournament versus Hanyu Guo (China) 2-0 (6:1, 6:3).
