Sevastova no better than Gulbis

ESTORIL, Portugal – Anastasija Sevastova has capped off a mediocre day for Latvian tennis, mirroring Ernests Gulbis by flopping in the opening round of the Estoril Open.

Seeded fourth in the tournament Sevastova had been expected to cruise past Urszula Radwanska of Poland. But the world no. 141 had different ideas, playing more like older sister and world no.12 Agnieszka, winning a tie breaker in the second set before cruising in the third to wrap up a deserved 5-7 7-6 (5) 6-1 victory.

Despite getting in a respectable 70% of her first serves, Sevastova struggled to close out, allowing herself to be taken to break point on four occasions in the opening set and a further eight in the second. Ironically, Sevastova was broken on three of those four occasions in the opening set but still held on to win it, whilst managing to hold on to seven of the eight break points in the second set but went on to lose it.

Following the disappointment of the second set, Sevastova appeared to have nothing left in the tank, easily succumbing to the Pole.

Earlier in the day fellow Latvian Gulbis had had been just as poor as he was shocked by unknown Ukrainian Illya Manchenko in the opening round of the Serbian Open, with the world no. 108 ending an eight game losing streak to beat the world no. 33, 6-2 6-4.