Li, Murray start with easy wins at Wimbledon
Print Edition
SECOND-SEEDED Li Na of China advanced to the second round at Wimbledon with a 7-5, 6-2 win over Paula Kania of Poland yesterday.
Li, the 2011 French Open champion, rallied to win the last four games of the first set after being down a service break at 3-5. Kania fought off two match points and broke Li’s serve at 1-5 but Li closed out the match in the following game.
The Australian Open champion was the highest seeded woman in action on the first day of the tournament. Top-seeded Serena Williams plays today.
Earlier, Andy Murray came onto Centre Court to a standing ovation and walked off to another as he began his Wimbledon title defense with a straight-set victory against David Goffin.
In keeping with tradition, Murray had the honor of playing the opening match on Centre Court as the defending men’s champion — and he looked right at home in beating the Belgian 6-1, 6-4, 7-5.
Murray broke 105th-ranked Goffin four times, saved the only two break points against him and sealed the contest with an ace, his eighth of the match. It was Murray’s 450th tour-level match win.
Last year, Murray became the first British man to win Wimbledon in 77 years. Now he’s bidding to become the first to retain the title since Fred Perry in 1936.
Among other winners on a cloudy opening day was sixth-seeded and 2010 runner-up Tomas Berdych, who beat Victor Hanescu 6-7 (5), 6-1, 6-4, 6-3. No. 12 Ernests Gulbis and No. 17 Mikhail Youzhny also advanced. But 18th-seeded Fernando Verdasco fell to Australia’s Marinko Matosevic, 4-6, 6-4, 4-6, 2-6.
In women’s play, former top-ranked Victoria Azarenka won her first match in five months, defeating 1999 Wimbledon semifinalist Mirjana Lucic-Baroni 6-3, 7-5. The eighth-seeded Azarenka, a two-time semifinalist at the All England Club, made her return at Eastbourne last week following the long layoff with a left foot injury, losing in the first round.
Former US Open champion Sam Stosur and 18th-seeded American Sloane Stephens were among the first-round losers.
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