ADELAIDE, Australia (AP) — American Amanda Anisimova has made the best of her lucky loser ticket by beating Russian Liudmila Samsonova 7-5, 6-3 in the first round of the Adelaide International to claim her first win in the main draw of a WTA tournament since August.
Anisimova reached the quarterfinals at Wimbledon last year and is a former French Open semifinalist, ranked 29. But she had to make her way through qualifying and a lucky loser second chance to reach the second installment of the Adelaide tournament.
The 21-year-old won only three games before losing to fourth-seeded Veronika Kudermetova in the first round at Adelaide last week, meaning she had to qualify for the main draw this week.
On Tuesday She took advantage of Samsonova’s shaky serve who had seven double faults and was broken five times in the match to advance to the second round in which she will face Beatriz Haddad Maia.
On the men’s side, American Tommy Paul beat Australian Christopher O’Connell 6-4, 7-5 in his first match of the year. Paul, ranked 35th, reached the quarterfinals of both Adelaide tournaments last year.
“First match of the season is always a little tough and everyone has nerves going into the first match,” Paul said. “So I was happy to go out and play the way that I did. I didn’t really do too much wrong and I served well.”
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