PROCEEDINGS may have only just begun at the Upper Austria Ladies Linz, but two upsets greeted the competition to start on an intriguing note. Two seeds – third seed Dayana Yastremska and eighth seed Bernarda Pera – were both knocked out in straight sets in under 80 minutes, while two Russians in Ekaterina Alexandrova and Varvara Gracheva prevailed, with the latter reigning supreme in a close encounter.

Yastremska’s day was well and truly spoiled by Greet Minnen, with the third seed knocked out of contention by the 110th ranked Belgian, 6-4 6-3. It was Yastremska’s mounting error rate that saw her unable to contest the way she needed to, with eight double faults to her name for three aces – compared to Minnen’s one and three – and a very shaky second serve winning just eight points at 25.8 per cent. While it certainly was not Yastremska’s day, there is no discrediting Minnen who took advantage of every ounce of the Ukrainian’s errors, winning close to 56 per cent of the total points and converting six of her 10 break points.

“It’s one of my biggest wins of the year,” Minnen said post-match. “It wasn’t expected because I haven’t been playing well the last few weeks, since the coronavirus stopped the season. When we resumed it was pretty rough for me and I didn’t win a lot of matches. I’m just happy I found my game again, and I’m winning matches.”

Meanwhile, Pera was downed by Belarusian Aliaksandra Sasnovich, with a shocking second set seeing the lower ranked player reign supreme in the 6-3 6-1 battle. While Sasnovich was not necessarily the cleaner player, she utilised her service games to control proceedings at a 63 per cent overall winning rate off her serve and backed it up by winning over 70 per cent of Pera’s second serve points. While Pera was more effective on serve, Sasnovich was far more efficient and dominated the second set for the excellent win.

In the remaining games, Alexandrova defeated Katerina Siniakova while Gracheva prevailed against a tough Katarina Zavatska. Another match completed in under 80 minutes – 79 to be exact – Alexandrova weathered the storm of Czech Siniakova, who served at an excellent 75.7 per cent effectiveness but was unable to win off her service games winning 54 per cent of points on serve. While Alexandrova collected three double faults and had a lower effectiveness on serve, she was far more efficient with the opportunities she had, winning 73 per cent of her first serve points and saved five of six break points to deny Siniakova a chance of gaining the upper hand in the 6-3 6-4 encounter. Unfortunately for Ukrainian fans, Zavatska went much the same way as Yastremska in her loss to Gracheva, but turned out a tough effort in the 6-4 7-5 battle, going down in an hour and 49 minutes. While the results were relatively close, with the Ukrainian getting close in the second set, Gracheva won majority of the stats with a better winning and return rate, also saving and converting more break points to reign supreme.