The second-seeded Jelena Ostapenko (Latvia) dropped out at the start of the WTA 250 Korea Open in Seoul after losing to the WTA No 569 representative of the hosts Dayeon Back by 1-2 (6:3, 1:6, 6:7) in 2:15 hours of play.
The Latvian tennis players started the match perfectly after registering two breaks and taking a lead of 4:0. She finally won the first set in only 35 minutes by 6:3 and expected to close the second in the same way, but the big surprise was yet to come. Dayeon Back surprised her opponent with one early break and leaded by 3:0, before making another break to lead by 5:1 and closed the set at 6:1 to equalize the score.
The third set started with exchange of breaks by both players, in which Jelena Ostapenko succeeded to take an advance of 5:2 and at 5:3 served for the match. However, Dayeon Back returned the break and thus equalized the game sin the set to 5:5. Finally the set entered into a tiebreak, which the South Korean tennis player won by 7-4 and qualified for the second round, where will face Kimberly Birrell (Australia), who eliminated Sachia Vickery (USA) after 2-0 (6:4, 6:4).
The 5th-seeded Sofia Kenin (USA) is also out of the tournament after losing to Su Jeong Jang (South Korea) by 0-2 (1:6, 4:6) in 1:10 hours of play. The American tennis player did not find the right gameplay from the very beginning and made too many unforced errors. In the next round Su Jeong Jang will face Emina Bektas (USA), who saved one match point but finally defeated Laura Pigossi (Brazil) by 2-1 (6:7, 6:4, 7:5).
The top-seeded Jessica Pegula (USA) defeated Viktoria Hruncakova (Slovakia) by 2-0 (6:2, 6:4) and in the next round will face her compatriot Ashlyn Krueger, who eliminated Nadia Podoroska (Argentina) after 2-0 (6:2, 6:4).
The German talent Eva Lys also advanced to the second round after defeated Anna Karolina Schmiedlova (Slovakia) by 2-0 (6:2, 6:4).
