Paula Badosa made a winning start to the WTA 1000 tournament in Dubai and bounced back from an early defeat in Doha.
On Sunday, the Spanish No. 9 seed kicked off her campaign at the Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships by beating 2024 Wimbledon quarterfinalist Lulu Sun 6-3 6-4.
Throughout the match, the world No. 10 didn’t have issues creating chances but she struggled a bit with realization – she converted three of her 14 break point chances.
However, Badosa also served pretty well and allowed only one break so it was enough for her to get the job done in two sets.
In her next match, the No. 9 seed will play against Elise Mertens, who beat Leylah Fernandez.
Before coming to Dubai, the Spaniard lost to Amanda Anisimova in the Doha second round earlier this week.
How Badosa beat Sun?
The Spanish tennis star earned a break in the second game of the match for an early 2-0 lead but then got broken back instantly.
However, she kept playing her game and went up by a break again after the fourth game.
In the rest of the set, not a single break point was seen as the No. 10 seed served out for the opener in the ninth game.
Early in the second set, Badosa had a great chance to go up by a break but missed out on a total of five break points in the third game.
After saving five break points, Sun also had a break point chance in the following game but didn’t realize it.
Then, the Spaniard finally got the first break of the second set in the fifth game and served out the following game to go 4-2 up.
In the ninth game, Badosa missed out on a match point on Sun’s serve but it didn’t change much since she routinely closed out the match on her serve in the following game.
Tennis World USA