Mérida (Mexico), Feb 23 (EFE).- The Polish Magda Linette, first favorite, advanced this Thursday to the quarterfinals of the Mérida Open, a Mexican WTA 250 tournament that takes place on a hard court, after withdrawing due to injury from the Hungarian Panna Udvardy.
Linette, 21 in the world and semifinalist of the last Australian Open, won the first set 6-0 and was down 2-5 in the second, until Udvardy retired.
The Pole will face in the quarterfinals the Swedish Rebecca Peterson, who comes from the ‘qualy’, and who previously gave the surprise by beating the American Alycia Parks, fifth seed, 6-4 and 6-2.
In 24 minutes, Linette dispatched Udvardy 6-0 in the first set, who could not keep up with the favorite to win the first edition of the Mérida tournament.
With forehands and drop shots, Linette became unbeatable in the opening set against a Udvardy who lost all her serves, made no exchanges and committed two double faults.
In the second set, both of them broke their serve for the first five ‘games’, until in the sixth set Udvardy kept it up with a good game from the service line.
In the seventh game, Udvardy once again broke Linette and while showing her best tennis in the eighth, leading 2-5, she sprained her right ankle in a trade that put her out of action.
Udvardy became the third tennis player to withdraw from the main draw in Mérida, the first being the Ukrainian Kateryna Baindl, who was replaced before the start of the first round by the Russian Varvara Gracheva.
Also in the first round, Ukraine’s Lesia Tsurenko withdrew in her match against fourth-seeded Czech Katerina Siniakova.
Later, the American Sloane Stephens, second seed, will challenge Gracheva and the Belgian Ysaline Bonaventure will challenge Siniakova for a place in the quarterfinals.