Anett Kontaveit kicks off her WTA Finals debut with a win over Krejcikova in Guadalajara

WTA Finals Guadalajara | Draw | Schedule

• What happened: Estonia’s Anett Kontaveit eased past Barbora Krejcikova in a battle of WTA Finals debutantes on Wednesday in Guadalajara.
• Why it matters: Kontaveit moves to the top of her group’s round robin standings.
• You may also learn: More about Kontaveit’s run of torrid tennis, which started at the end of the summer.

Estonia’s Anett Kontaveit took her place as the first woman from her country to ever contest a WTA Finals singles match and came away with yet another impressive win in Wednesday’s kick-off at Guadalajara. Kontaveit, on fire since joining forces with coach Dmitry Tursunov at Cincinnati this year, has now won 27 of her last 29 matches, including her last eleven.

The 25-year-old, fresh off of titles at Moscow and Cluj-Napoca, which vaulted her into the top 10 and allowed for eleventh-hour qualification at this year’s WTA Finals, picked up where she left off with a convincing victory over the world No 3.

Kontaveit cracked 8 aces and won 23 of 27 first-serve points against Krejcikova, never facing a break point and converting one in each set as she played front-runner perfectly and finished off the Czech in an uncomplicated 75 minutes.

“The tennis is pretty fast here, so it was important to make a first serve,” she said. “I wish I made a lot more first serves. But once it did go in, I managed to win a lot of points which was very important I think today.”

Kontaveit, the WTA’s leader in hard court wins with 37, improves to 5-5 against the top 10 in 2021, and 46-15 overall.

Conditions were tough on Krejcikova

With Guadalajara at 1,500 Metres altitude, many players have talked about how difficult it has been to adjust to the conditions. During yesterday’s pre-tournament media availability, many players talked about how difficult it is to control the ball at Guadalajara.

Krejcikova admitted that she was unable to find her game after playing indoors last week at Prague.

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“I think really the conditions, just the conditions were tricky,” she said. “I mean, it was my first match, so obviously I was hoping it’s going to be better. It wasn’t that good. I still have a lot of matches to go. I actually think that, yeah, it was only two breaks, one in the first, one in the second. Well, I hope I’m still going to improve with the conditions.”

Kontaveit said she relied on her serve to help her through, but admitted that the conditions are not easy.

“I was trying to play as many balls back as possible, as it does fly a little bit,” she said. “I think I managed to win a lot of points on my first serves once they actually went in.”

Teotihuacan Group standings:

Kontaveit moves to the top of group, which also includes Krejcikova, Garbine Muguruza and Karolina Pliskova. Muguruza and Pliskova will play Wednesday’s night session in Guadalajara.

• Kontaveit, 1-0 (2 sets won, zero lost)
• Muguruza, 0-0
• Pliskova, 0-0
• Krejcikova, 0-1 (0 sets won, two lost)