Muchova and Kvitova started the tournament in Doha victorious, while Krejcikova and Pliskova dropped out. Who will the Czechs face in the second round?

The WTA 500 tournament is taking place in Doha this week. Four Czech tennis players competed in the first round of singles on the outdoor hard courts in the Qatari capital, two of them winning. What were the results of their matches?

On Monday, Karolína Muchová and Barbora Krejčíková started their performance at the Qatar TotalEnergies Open 2023. And they fared differently.

Muchova ran into Martina Trevisan of Italy, who is currently almost 100 places higher on the WTA rankings. Still, the world number 123 tennis player beat the 25th ranked player in the women’s singles rankings quite smoothly.

The native of Olomouc won twice 6:2 in the 80-minute contest and can prepare for Wednesday’s clash with the big favourite. Muchova’s opponent will be world number five Caroline Garcia from France.

Krejcikova’s match against Veronika Kudermetova was much more even. After the Czech lost the opening set 4::6, she won the second set 6::3. The three-hour match had a dramatic ending, which was better handled by the Russian. The 11th ranked singles player defeated the 29th ranked tennis player in the tiebreak 7::5.

On Tuesday after noon, the duel between Petra Kvitova and Zhang Shuai started. The Chinese player is ranked 22nd in the WTA rankings, the two-time Wimbledon champion 13th. The first set was evenly matched, but the Czech player managed to finish it better and won 7::5.

In the second set, Kvitova took her Asian opponent’s serve three times, so one lost serve did not matter. The final score was 6::2. The thirty-two year old Olympic medalist should start Wednesday’s tournament program with her eight-final match against Cori Gauff at 13:30.

On the other hand, the second round will not include Karolina Pliskova, who did not perform well in the main event after a successful qualification. The final scores of 1::6 and 2::6 did not correspond to the expectations, according to which she should have played a more balanced match with Ekaterina Alexandrova, who is only one position better, as the 19th ranked tennis player.

The defending champion of last year’s triumph in Doha is world No. 1 Iga Świątek, who will face Danielle Collins of the USA in the eighth round. Live coverage of the Qatar event will be broadcast by O2 TV Tennis.

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