Julia Grabher has defeated a player from the top 30 of the WTA world rankings for the first time. The 26-year-old from Vorarlberg won the first round match against the Chinese Zhang Shuai 6: 4 1: 6 6: 3 at the WTA 500 tournament in Charleston / USA on Monday and thus only her second main round match on the WTA tour this year.
Zhang is ranked No. 28 in the world and was the No. 10 seeded in the clay court tournament in South Carolina. Almost exactly three months after her first round victory in Auckland on January 2nd, Grabher was able to celebrate one of her most valuable victories. The number 89 in the world rankings got the first set after 33 minutes thanks to two breaks.
In the second section, Austria’s number one gave up their serve to make it 1: 3 and then clearly gave up the set. In the deciding set, however, Grabher was always in control of the 34-year-old Chinese. A break to 3:1 and then safe service games were enough for success after 1:35 hours. In the second round, Grabher meets the winner of the US duel between Kayla Day and Sachia Vickery.
Kraus meets Podoroska in Bogota
At the sand tournament in Bogota, Sinja Kraus has to deal with the Argentinian Nadia Podoroska, who was number eight after qualifying, the Argentinian is a French Open semi-finalist in 2020.
More see Current WTA Tournaments