The top-seeded Yue Yuan (China) was knocked out at the start of the WTA 250 Morocco Open in Rabat. The Chinese tennis player was defeated in the first round by Camilla Rosatello (Italy) by 1-2 (6:7, 6:1, 4:6) in a match that lasted 2:34 hours.
The match started equally with both players winning their serve games. Yue Yuan recorded the first break and took a lead by 3:1, but her opponent returned the break immediately. Both players exchnaged two more breaks each to 5:4, but Camilla Rosatello needed to save 3 set points in the 9th game. She saved three more set points in the 10th game to equalize the score to 5:5 and another four set points to equalize to 6:6. After reaching the tiebreak, Yue Yuan had two more set points, but again lost them. At the end Camilla Rosatello succeeded to win the tiebreak by 9-7 and closed the set in her favor.
The Chinese tennis player started strongly in the second set and with two breaks took a lead by 4:0. Camilla Rosatello won her serve for 4:1, but Yue Yuan continued her strong performance in the set and won her serve for 5:1 and again broke for 6:1 to close the set.
In the third set, both players won their serve games until 3:3. Camilla Rosatello made the first break in the set to take a lead by 4:3, but Yue Yuan returned it immediately and equalized to 4:4. However, the Italian played broke again and served for the match and needed to save two breakpoints before closing the game, set and match on her first match point.
In the second round, Camilla Rosatello will face Kamilla Rakhimova (Russia), who advanced after the retirement of Taylor Townsend (USA).
Nadia Podoroska (Argentina) also qualified for the second round of the tournament after defeating Tatjana Maria (Germany) by 2-0 (6:2, 6:4) and will face the third-seeded Sara Sorribes Tormo (Spain), who eliminated Harriet Dart (UK) after 2-0 (6:2, 6:0).
Meanwhile, the Chinese tennis player Xiyu Wang defeated Nuria Brancaccio (Italy) by 2-0 (7:6, 7:5) and her compatriot Zhuoxuan Bai eliminated Kayla Day (USA) after 2-0 (6:3, 7:6).