China’s Li Na laments shock first-round defeat

World number two becomes biggest casualty of French Open after Wawrinka.

PARIS: Chinese second seed Li Na admitted she wasn’t ready mentally after crashing out in the French Open first round at the hands of world number 103 Kristina Mladenovic of France.

Following men’s third seed Stan Wawrinka’s exit on Monday, fellow Australian Open champion Li became the biggest early victim in the women’s draw as 21-year-old Mladenovic stormed through 7-5, 3-6, 6-1 on a windswept Suzanne Lenglen court.

“Nobody says if you’re number two in the world you have to win all the matches. I mean, this is tennis,” said Li, the 2011 Roland Garros champion.

“I think it doesn’t matter who plays against me, I always lose because I don’t think I put pressure on her,” she said about Mladenovic, who reaches the last 64 for just the second time in six appearances in Paris.

Li came into the tournament in good form having reached the quarter-finals at Rome and Madrid as well as the Miami Masters final where she lost to Serena Williams.

However, her results in Paris since becoming the first Asian player to win a Grand Slam three years ago have been disappointing.

She was knocked out in the second round last year and hasn’t been past the fourth round in any of her seven other appearances in the French capital.

Meanwhile, Mladenovic next meets Alison Riske of the US.

“It’s just incredible, I don’t have the words to describe what happened,” a tearful Mladenovic said.

“To beat the world number two in the first round at Roland Garros is incredible. Without you, I couldn’t have done it,” the 2009 French Open junior champion told the crowd.

In another match, 13th seed Caroline Wozniacki suffered a morale-sapping loss at the French Open, slipping to a 7-6 (7/5), 4-6, 6-2 defeat to Belgium’s Yanina Wickmayer on a chilly Court Two.

Murray advances to round two

British number one Andy Murray got his French Open campaign off to a winning start as he needed four sets to see off Kazakhstan’s Andrey Golubev 6-1, 6-4, 3-6, 6-3.

The Wimbledon champion reached the 2011 semi-finals on the Paris clay, his best result to date on his least favourite surface but he was given a stern workout by his world number 53 opponent.

A run to the Rome Masters quarter-finals where he was outlasted by Rafael Nadal losing 7-5 in the decider has given the Murray camp reason for optimism in his seventh appearance at the French.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 28^th, 2014.

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