Wimbledon champion Krejcikova edges Sorribes Tormo in titanic opener at Olympics

Wimbledon champion Barbora Krejcikova came through a huge test of her title credentials at the Olympics on Sunday as she edged out Sara Sorribes Tormo of Spain 4-6, 6-0, 7-6 (2) in the first round.

Just as she was at Wimbledon, when she was pushed to 7-5 in the third set of her first-round battle, Krejcikova had to dig deep, fending off an obdurate opponent and keeping her calm under pressure to advance to round two after two hours, 55 minutes.

“The match was very difficult but I’m super happy that I won, that I was able to get it at the end,” she said. “Since the title in 2021 here, I didn’t win a single match here, and today I didn’t expect I could play this long, so I’m very happy.”

Sorribes ran everything down and continued to ask questions of Krejcikova but the Czech, a former Roland-Garros champion, stayed calm, holding serve twice under pressure at the end of the third set and then running away with the tiebreak. She’ll face Xinyu Wang in the second round.

Sakkari, Collins, Svitolina through

Maria Sakkari led a hist of other high seeds into the second round. The Greek, No 7 seed, beat Danka Kovinic 6-0, 6-1. Danielle Collins was leading Laura Siegemund 6-3, 2-0 when the German retired through injury and Elina Svitolina began in impressive fashion as she beat Moyuka Uchijima 6-2, 6-1.

There were also two double bagels in the women’s event; sixth seed Qinwen Zheng routing Sara Errani 6-0, 6-0 and Maria Lourdes Carle doing the same to Tatjana Maria.

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