MADRID, 29 Apr: Australian Open finalist Danielle Collins won the last eight games to advance to the second round of the Madrid Open with a 7-5, 6-0 victory over Monica Puig on Friday.
\nPuig, the Olympic gold medalist in Rio de Janeiro in 2016, is returning to action following shoulder and bicep surgeries. The 28-year-old Puerto Rican appeared in only four matches since her first major surgery in 2019.
\n\u201cYou never know what to expect when someone\u2019s been out for a while, and they\u2019ve been working on some things,\u201d the sixth-seeded Collins said. \u201cYou don\u2019t know what type of game style that they\u2019re going to play, so it was a little bit tricky trying to anticipate what she was going to do. I think she played at a super-high level, especially in the first set, and gave me a lot of challenges, so I really needed to just find my rhythm on the court.\u201d
\nCollins also missed matches this season because of injury, including a neck ailment that she picked up during her quarterfinal run in Miami.
\n\u201cWhen you go a little period where you aren\u2019t playing some matches, you almost feel a little bit rusty,\u201d the 28-year-old American said. \u201cI just needed to be patient and try to get myself back into it.\u201d
\nAnother American to advance was 12th-seeded Jessica Pegula, who beat Camila Giorgi 7-5, 2-6, 7-5. Madison Keys was eliminated 7-6 (8), 3-6, 4-6 against fourth-seeded Maria Sakkari.
\nSeventh-seeded Garbine Muguruza, one of the home-crowd favorites in the Spanish capital, defeated Ajla Tomljanovic 7-5, 6-2, while Leylah Fern\u00e1ndez, the U.S. Open runner-up last year, beat Andrea Petkovic 6-1, 1-6, 6-4.
\nJil Teichmann handed three-time Madrid champion Petra Kvitova her first loss in the first round at the tournament since 2010.
\nIn a match between promising 19-year-olds, wildcard entry Marta Kostyuk beat Clara Tauson 6-3, 6-2.
\nTop-ranked Iga Swiatek withdrew from the clay-court tournament on Wednesday because of a sore arm.
\nThe men\u2019s first round begins next week, with both Rafael Nadal and top-ranked Novak Djokovic participating. (AP)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
MADRID, 29 Apr: Australian Open finalist Danielle Collins won the last eight games to advance to the second round of the Madrid Open with a 7-5, 6-0 victory over Monica Puig on Friday. Puig, the Olympic gold medalist in Rio de Janeiro in 2016, is returning to action following shoulder and bicep surgeries. The 28-year-old […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-189959","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/189959","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=189959"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/189959\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=189959"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=189959"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=189959"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}