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| Unseeded Mihaela Buzarnescu, playing in the final of last year's inaugural Mubadala Silicon Valley Classic, lost to wild card Daria Kasatkina 6-2, 6-2 tonight in the first round of the San Jose tournament. Photo by Mal Taam |
Daria Kasatkina, a 22-year-old wild card from Russia, ousted the unseeded, error-prone Buzarnescu 6-2, 6-2 tonight in the first round at San Jose State.
Buzarnescu, a 31-year-old left-hander from Romania, fell to 9-21 this year with no quarterfinal appearances in 19 tournaments. Ranked a career-high No. 20 last August, she will plunge 66 spots from No. 58 to No. 124 next Monday.
Kasatkina has had her own woes, tumbling from a career-high No. 10 last October to No. 40. She is scheduled to face top-seeded Elina Svitolina, 24, on Wednesday. The top four seeds received first-round byes.
Svitolina, ranked seventh, is coming off her best Grand Slam result, a semifinal appearance at Wimbledon.
Seventh-seeded Maria Sakkari, who lost to Buzarnescu 6-1, 6-0 in last year's Mubadala final, beat Ekaterina Alexandrova of Russia 6-1, 6-4.
Sakkari, 24, of Greece will play Japanese qualifier Mayo Hibi, the runner-up in the $60,000 Berkeley Tennis Club Women's Challenge two weeks ago.
The 23-year-old Hibi, ranked No. 265, edged Hungarian qualifier Timea Babos, ranked No. 126 in singles and No. 3 in doubles, 6-2, 3-6, 7-6 (3) in 2 hours, 48 minutes. Babos had five aces and 12 double faults.
Wild card CoCo Vandeweghe, playing in her first tournament match of the year after recovering from an ankle injury, defeated 21-year-old Czech Marie Bouzkova 6-2, 6-4.
Vandeweghe, the runner-up in the Bank of the West Classic at Stanford in 2012 and 2017, climbed to a career-high No. 10 in November 2017. She will play Belarus' Aryna Sabalenka, seeded second and ranked 10th, on Wednesday.
Sabalenka is coached by Russian Dmitry Tursunov, a former top-20 player who trained in Northern California from age 12 into his 30s.
Qualifier Kristie Ahn, a 27-year-old Stanford graduate, outlasted Ajla Tomljanovic, a 26-year-old Croatia-born Australian, 6-3, 4-6, 6-4. Tomljanovic reached the final of the 2017 Sacramento Challenger.
Ahn recorded her first main-draw victory ever in the tournament, which moved from Stanford last year, and on the WTA tour since she stunned top-seeded Jelena Ostapenko, the 2017 French Open champion, in the first round on clay in Bogota in April.
The 178th-ranked Ahn, a Berkeley semifinalist, will face Belgium's Elise Mertens, seeded third and ranked No. 20, on Wednesday.
Sixth-seeded Carla Suarez Navarro of Spain dispatched Magda Linette of Poland 6-3, 6-3. Suarez Navarro, who won the doubles title in the 2014 Bank of the West Classic with compatriot Garbine Muguruza, will meet the winner of Tuesday's featured 7 p.m. match between U.S. wild cards Venus Williams, 39, and Bethanie Mattek-Sands, 34.
In the opening round of doubles, Eri Hozumi and Makoto Ninomiya of Japan eliminated Mattek-Sands and China's Peng Shuai, both formerly ranked No. 1 in doubles, 6-2, 6-4.
Here are the San Jose singles and doubles draws and Tuesday's schedule. Tennis Channel is televising the tournament.