Bianca Andreescu made a winning start at the 2023 Libema Open in 's-Hertogenbosch, beating Zeynep Sonmez.
Playing against players that successful completed qualifying is never easy in the first round of the tournaments, and that's something that the Canadian experienced at the WTA 250 tournament in 's-Hertogenbosch when she took 21-year-old qualifier from Turkey.
Naturally, the two never met before on the WTA Tour, with Andreescu being a favourite in their first match. All the seeded players that played before won, and there was maybe some extra pressure for the Canadian when entering the court.
Last year, she finished the grass-court season with a positive record and she certainly wanted to follow up on that in 2023. Also maybe motivated by her grandmother, Andreescu started very well in the match.
She won the first three games, breaking her opponent's serve twice and establishing the dominance early on. But the response from Sonmez was quick and the qualifier even had a chance to level the score with three break points in the sixth game of the opening set.
Yet, the 2019 US Open champion used her experience to save all of those break points, eventually winning the first set 6-4, without any additional break points or drama in the opening set of the first-round match.
The second set was of a similar nature and once again, the Turkish player was able to get close to a surprise. After being down already 1-3 in the second set, Sonmez got herself back into the match, even leading 4-3, and 40-30.
But any of that effort wasn't good enough to beat Andreescu, who won the match 6-4, 6-4, and set up a second-round match with Viktoria Hruncakova from Slovakia, who is a challenging opponent on the grass court, especially because of her strong serve.
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