Tennis player Putintseva beats Sakkari in Tokyo and will face Rybakina — Interia Sport

Kazakh tennis player Yulia Putintseva defeated Greek tennis player Maria Sakkari in the first round of the WTA 500 tournament in Tokyo, Japan. The match ended 6:4, 3:6, 6:1 and lasted 2 hours and 26 minutes. In the second round, Putintseva will play world No. 1 Elena Rybakina, Interia Sport reports.

Match progress

Putintseva, who was ranked 67th in the WTA rankings, began the match against world No. 30 Sakkari trailing 0:2. The representative of Kazakhstan made two breaks and won the first set 6:4. In the second set, Sakkari won 6:3, but in the decisive set Putintseva gave her opponent only one game.

Putintseva reached the main draw of the Tokyo tournament through qualifying. There, she defeated two Japanese tennis players — Haya Kinoshita and Sayaka Ishii.

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Maja Chwalinska's withdrawal

Polish tennis player Maja Chwalinska, who was supposed to be seeded second, did not compete in the Tokyo tournament. On social media, she said that she had withdrawn due to a left hip injury sustained in Wuhan.

Chwalinska noted that she arrived early in Japan's capital for physiotherapy and training, but did not have time to recover before the start of the competition. Earlier in Wuhan, she defeated Sakkari in the quarterfinals 6:0, 3:6, 7:5.