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No. 12 seed Liudmila Samsonova and No. 13 seed
Veronika Kudermetova, both of Russia, also advanced in the
opening round.
Ostapenko, who was the Dubai champion in 2022, won 78 percent of
her first-serve points, but had to survive 11 aces by Wang while
winning the match in 2 hours, 2 minutes. Afterward, Ostapenko
said she was ready to stay on the court even longer, mostly
because of an oversight.
"I thought the score was 5-2, and when it was 6-3, I was like,
'What's happening?'," Ostapenko said during her on-court
interview. "It's the first time I miscounted the score in my
life, maybe since juniors. I was ready to play more, and the
match was already over."
Two-time Dubai champion Elina Svitolina of Ukraine also was a
winner on Monday, with the No. 15 seed getting past Anhelina
Kalinina, also of Ukraine, 6-3, 7-6 (7). Svitolina won 82
percent of her first-serve points while saving all three break
points and breaking Kalinina once in three chances.
"It's a great tournament here," said Svitolina, who won
consecutive Dubai titles in 2017 and 2018. "I'm really happy to
be back in the city, back on the center court. Have so many
great memories. Brings back, really, joy for me."
Samsonova advanced with a 7-6 (2), 6-3 victory over Viktoriya
Tomova of Bulgaria despite having her serve broken while trying
to close out the first set at 6-5. She won the set by winning
the last six points of the tiebreak.
Kudermetova moved on with an up-and-down 6-0, 1-6, 6-0 victory
over Dayana Yastremska of Ukraine. Kudermetova had her serve
broken twice, both in the second set, while braking Yastremska's
serve six times in 13 chances.
Other first-round winners included Switzerland's Lulu Sun, who
won the first set 6-4 and moved on when Spain's Paula Badosa
retired with an injury. Russia's Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova earned
a 6-4, 6-3 victory over Marie Bouzkova of Czech Republic.
Karolina Pliskova of the Czech Republic came out on top 6-3, 7-5
over China's Shuai Zhang.
Russia's Anastasia Potapova also moved into the second round
with a 4-6, 6-2, 6-4 victory over Lin Zhu of China.
--Field Level Media
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