Following yesterday’s losses for several seeded players, Wednesday saw the top seed pack her bags at the 2014 Topshelf Open as Simona Halep will not defend her 2013 title in ‘s-Hertogenbosch.
Playing against Germany’s Annika Beck, Halep had to retire early into the second set as an injury prevented the Roland Garros finalist from finishing her match, allowing the German youngster to advance into the quarterfinals despite having dropped the first set.
Injuries and retirements unfortunately were a common theme at the Topshelf Open today as Halep was far from the only player who had to forfeit her match. Earlier in the day, Carla Suarez Navarro was forced to end her match against Zheng Jie with a lower-back injury. Even though the Spaniard took several medical timeouts and tried to grind herself through the match, Suarez Navarro decided to call it quits early in the second set.
Another match that ended prematurely was the all-American duel between Vania King & Coco Vandeweghe. After taking the first set, King soon found herself helpless against the fellow American due to an injury and decided to retire after dropping the second set 0-6.
Two other matches went the distance though, providing some very entertaining tennis. On center court, Yaroslava Shvedova got past Michaella Krajicek, the Dutch player made the headlines on Monday due to her engagement on-court. Unfortunately, the Cinderella story for the local favorite did not continue today, as Krajicek lost both sets in two tight tiebreaks despite all the crowd support on her side.
Speaking of crowd support, another player very popular with the local crowd is Kirsten Flipkens. The Belgian had plenty of vocal support on her side when facing off with Elina Svitolina. Despite having to play against both her opponent and the crowd, the young Ukranian delivered an impressive performance, forcing a gutsy two-set win to make the quarterfinals.
Quarterfinals action at the Topshelf Open is due to kick off tomorrow. With most of the top seeds already having been eliminated, the 2014 edition of the event might as well have a surprise winner. Who will it be? Keep on checking back to Women’s Tennis Blog to find out!
The photos are good, but I am increasingly annoyed at the lack of player identification. The very tops are of course recognizable, but who on earth are the others…..how to put together the photos with your comments?
Each photo has a caption with the player’s name, you just have to move the mouse over it 🙂
Thanks for replying, but when I look at them on my iPad the only text is your copyright, the series number of the photo, and next/ previous……….