The first day of the 2018 WTA Finals Singapore saw the defending champion Caroline Wozniacki succumb to Karolina Pliskova while Elina Svitolina began her campaign on a positive note with a straight-set win over Petra Kvitova.
It was a surprising opening to the first day’s action at the WTA Finals with four of the best women’s players in the world going up against each other.
Wozniacki, who has been seeded second for the tournament, went up against her Czech adversary Karolina Pliskova in her robin round fixture. She went into the game with a healthy 6-3 lead in the head to head matches over Pliskova. Interestingly, the two ladies last met in the semifinals of 2017 WTA Championships, where the Dane won in straight sets.
This time, however, Pliskova appeared to be highly determined to settle the score. The 2018 US Open quarterfinalist sailed to a comfortable victory with 6-2, 6-4, in little over 90 minutes. She maintained a first service win rate of 68% and won a total of three break points to see herself through to the victory.
Wozniacki, who most recently won the China Open, has had a sensational season so far. However, she is just one defeat away from being knocked out of the tournament.
On the other side of things, we saw the Ukrainian No. 1 Elina Svitolina move past the Czech Petra Kvitova in straight sets.
It took Svitolina a little over an hour to clinch the victory with 6-3, 6-3. It is quite remarkable to note that the Czech has heavily dominated their previous meetings. Prior to this meeting, she held a 7-1 lead in the head to head tally, having won all of her previous 7 encounters against Svitolina.
Things are definitely about to get a lot more interesting with Wozniacki and Kvitova set to go head to head on Tuesday, October 23.
Needless to mention, it is a must win game for the two ladies. In other news, the Red Group fixtures will be played on Monday with Naomi Osaka set to face Sloane Stephens, and Kiki Bertens going up against the top seed Angelique Kerber. Day two predictions for the WTA Finals can be found here.
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