Unseeded Zheng Qinwen of China pulled off a first-round upset, sweeping No 6 seed Jessica Bouzas Maneiro of Spain 7-5, 6-1 on Monday at the Athens Open.
Zheng, who collected seven aces to zero for Bouzas Maniero, saved 6 of 7 break points and converted 4 of 7 break points in the one-hour, 49-minute match. After breaking Bouzas Maniero to close out a hard-fought first set, Zheng broke her opponent twice in the second set and cruised to victory.
In another upset, unseeded Mai Hontama of Japan upended No 8 seed Magda Linette of Poland 6-4, 7-5, breaking Linette's serve three times in each set.
Other first-round winners included Athens native and No 4 seed Maria Sakkari, No 5 seed Sara Bejlek of the Czech Republic, American Alycia Parks, Austria's Lilli Tagger, Elena Micic of Australia and Great Britain's Harriet Dart.
ALSO READ: Zheng Qinwen, Wang Xinyu into second round at WTA Bad Homburg Open
Iasi Open
In the first round of the clay-court tournament at Iasi, Romania, No 2 seed Petra Marcinko of Croatia outlasted Argentine wild card Nadia Podoroska 6-2, 3-6, 6-4.
Marcinko saved an impressive 16 of 19 break points, including all eight in the decisive third set, while converting half of her eight break-point opportunities to avoid an early upset. Podoroska collected three aces to none by Marcinko, while both players committed eight double faults.
No 7 seed Anna Bondar of Hungary swept wild card Sara Sorribes Tormo of Spain 7-5, 6-4, while Armenia's Alina Charaeva cruised past Victoria Jimenez Kasintseva of Andorra 6-0, 6-1 and French wild card Clara Burel outlasted lucky loser Varvara Lepchenko 2-6, 7-5, 6-3.
