TOKYO (AP) — Top-seeded Monica Seles shook off some early rustiness Wednesday before defeating Japan’s Ai Sugiyama in three sets in a second-round match at the Toray Pan Pacific tennis tournament.
Seles improved to 10-0 against Sugiyama with a 7-5, 5-7, 6-1 victory in 1 hour, 55 minutes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“I didn’t have enough practice and it’s been tough since the Australian Open,” said Seles, who lost in the second round in Melbourne after injuring her ankle early in a three-set loss to Klara Koukalova.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Wednesday’s match against Japan’s top player could have been much shorter but Sugiyama fought off four match points and then won the next two games to take the second set 7-5.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
For 28th-ranked Sugiyama, it was another frustrating loss to Seles, who is currently ninth in the WTA rankings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n TOKYO (AP) — Top-seeded Monica Seles shook off some early rustiness Wednesday before defeating Japan’s Ai Sugiyama in three sets in a second-round match at the Toray Pan Pacific tennis tournament.Seles improved to 10-0 against Sugiyama with a 7-5, 5-7, 6-1 victory in 1 hour, 55 minutes. “I didn’t have enough practice and it’s been […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"default","ast-site-content-layout":"","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"default","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[61,56],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/monicaselessite.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7938"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/monicaselessite.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/monicaselessite.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/monicaselessite.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/monicaselessite.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7938"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/monicaselessite.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7938\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/monicaselessite.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7938"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/monicaselessite.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7938"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/monicaselessite.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7938"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}The last time I played Ai was at Wimbledon,'' Seles said.<\/code>I knew she’d be tough here on this surface. She played well in the first two sets and then I got lucky in the third.”<\/p>\n\n\n\nI felt I was able to play even with her in the first two sets,'' Sugiyama said.<\/code>In the third she started pushing me harder and that’s when I started to make mistakes.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"