Her first ever professional victory was against Shaun Stafford at Oakland – a match she won 6-3 6-4 in 1994.
Advertisement
Venus Williams entered the prestigious 700 club as she won her 700 career match in the second round of Wuhan Open against German qualifier Julia Goerges 6-4, 6-3.The 35 year old however was not aware of her achievement as she said that she would have been nervous had she known about the record before.
The pivotal moment in the first set came in the fifth game, when a succession of thumping forehand winners helped Williams come from 15-40 down to break.
Nearly three weeks to the day that Vinci stunned the sporting world with her sensational upset of Serena Williams in New York, she produced another cerebral display to overcome Kvitova 7-6(3), 6-2.
In Shenzhen, sixth-seeded Jiri Vesely advanced to the quarterfinals of the Shenzhen Open by beating Zhizhen Zhang of China 6-2, 6-3. I said, look, I m going to fight again and see what happens. Two errors later and the set was hers.
“I’m glad nobody told me before”, the American joked.
Muguruza is in the running to make it to the top-eight Women’s Tennis Association Finals in Singapore at the end of this month, with the field looking increasingly open after the Wuhan upsets.
“I’m not sure if it’s my lucky number – that’s 11, but it’s pretty unbelievable to get to 700 wins”, Venus said in her on-court interview afer the match on wednesday. How many places will depend on whether she can advance beyond her quarter-final, where she will take on No8 seed Karolina Pliskova, who took nearly two hours to beat Elena Svitolina.
Advertisement
With Maria Sharapova, Victoria Azarenka, Caroline Wozniacki, Belinda Bencic also departing early, Ana Ivanovic became another big name to fall when she lost Garbine Muguruza.
