In the main draw on Day 2 of the Mubadala Abu Dhabi Open, the two youngest players had mixed luck. Zheng Qinwen beat qualifier Rebecca Marino 6-3, 6-3 but Shelby Rogers beat Leila Fernandez (5) 6-4, 6-7 in 2 hours 20 minutes 6 -1.
Zheng was the first of the 20-year-old to take the field and beat her Canadian opponent in 78 minutes with no-nonsense performance, her third win in as many meetings with Marino. The world No. 29 server was especially dominant: clean aces accounted for 10 of her 24 winners, and she trailed by just three points after her first serve.
In the whole game, Zheng Zhi only faced one break point, and the second set was 4-2. She stopped the game with a beautiful forehand winner. In the second round, she will face No. 5 seed Elena Ostapenko for the second time in the past seven months. Zheng upset the Latvian 6-3, 3-6, 6-4 in the first round of last year’s US Open.
Rodgers and Fernandez face off for the fourth time, but first outside the United States, and their fiercely competitive pattern continues nonetheless. The pair’s last two meetings, in Indian Wells in 2021 and 2022, required a decider in both meetings; that was the case again in Abu Dhabi, where both Rodgers and Fernandes made it through qualifying.
Both players are committed to a quick, aggressive scoring strategy, with the serve the most important. Rodgers executed better, scoring 81 percent of her first serves to Fernandez’s 65 percent and 69 percent of her second serves to the Canadian’s 61 percent.
emphasize: Rogers D. Fernandez | Haddad Maya D. Buzkova
Fernandes did hit more winners, 29 to Rodgers’ 26, but her agility in scoring quick finishes also allowed the 2021 US Open finalist to 51 unforced appearances. Sexual mistakes. This was especially the case in the one-sided third set: Fernandez mustered up the courage to close the second set in the decider but was unable to contain Rodgers in the decider.
Rodgers, ranked 46, defeated Fernandez 3-1 and will face No. 7 seed Kontavit in the second round.
Two top three finishers withdrew before the race. Wild card Garbiñe Muguruza, who slipped to No. 83, withdrew due to personal reasons and was replaced by lucky loser Ysaline Bonaventure. Paula Badossa’s luck worsened when she was ruled out of the Australian Open by an injury to her captor, and her upper respiratory ailment forced her to retire this week. She was replaced by lucky loser Claire Liu.