Kaia Kanepi starts 2023 with a win in Adelaide
Kaia Kanepi got the new year off to a good start with a win at the Adelaide International, coming from a set down to beat Aliaksandra Sasnovich (Belarus) 4:6, 6.1, 6:4 on New Year's Day.
Only two spots in the rankings separated the Estonian (32nd in the world) and the Belarusian (30th), though the stats told a different story: Kanepi took 80 percent of her points from the first serve (37 out of 46) compared with Sasnovich's 63 percent (31 out of 49 points), and won four out of five break points, compared with two out of five for Sasnovich.
Kanepi next faces the victor of the clash between Marketa Vondrousova (Czech Republic, WTA 92nd) and number 8 seed Ekaterina Alexandrova (neutral flag, WTA 19th).
Estonia's top player and tournament sixth seed, Anett Kontaveit, ranked 17th in the world, faces Qinwen Zheng (China, ranked 28th in the world) in her opening round clash in Adelaide.
Both games take place Monday.
There are no fewer than five WTA tournaments taking place in Australia and New Zealand in the first couple of weeks of the year, including two back-to-back WTA500 competitions in Adelaide, South Australia, ahead of the first grand slam of the year, the Australian Open, which starts in Melbourne on January 16.
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Editor: Andrew Whyte, Siim Boikov
Source: ERR Sport
