No. 2 seed Anett Kontaveit and No. 10 Emma Raducanu were upset in second-round play at Wimbledon on Wednesday, shaking up the women’s field.
Jule Niemeier of Germany needed just 58 minutes to eliminate Kontaveit 6-4, 6-0 for her first career victory over a Top 10 player.
Kontaveit, of Estonia, battled COVID-19 this spring and was playing in her first tournament since falling in the first round of the French Open last month.
Niemeier lost just five points on her first serve and didn’t face a break point. While she hit 13 winners and an equal number of unforced errors, Kontaveit had just seven winners to go with 24 unforced errors.
“I played two former Top 10 players before, and I knew that I had the level. It was pretty close. I lost twice in three sets,” Niemeier said. “I knew I had the level to beat those players, and I’m really happy I could do it today.”
Great Britain’s Raducanu, the reigning U.S. Open champion, fell in front of the home crowd to Caroline Garcia of France 6-3, 6-3.
“Obviously it’s tough to lose any match,” Raducanu said. “But it’s OK because, coming into this, I didn’t really have many expectations of myself.”
Garcia, who reached World No. 4 in September 2017, qualified for the third round at the All England Club in London for the third time in her career with the 85-minute win.
She now has won seven consecutive matches, with this victory achieved behind 25 winners compared to 12 for Raducanu. She won 74 percent of points on her first serve.
Third-seeded Ons Jabeur and No. 5 Maria Sakkari of Greece both rolled to straight-set victories. Jabeur defeated Katarzyna Kawa of Poland 6-4, 6-0 in 64 minutes. Sakkari easily dispatched Viktoriya Tomova of Bulgaria 6-4, 6-3.
Ninth-seeded Garbine Muguruza of Spain also fell. Germany’s Greet Minnen needed just 61 minutes to oust Muguruza 6-4, 6-0. Muguruza had 33 unforced errors.
Also advancing to the third round on Wednesday were American Jessica Pegula, the eighth seed; 12th seed Jelena Ostapenko of Latvia; sixth-seeded Karolina Pliskova of Czech Republic; and Germany’s Angelique Kerber, the 15th seed, who won at Wimbledon in 2018.
Sorana Cirstea (No. 26) of Romania, Alison Riske-Amritraj (No. 28), Anhelina Kalinina (No. 29) of the Ukraine and Shuai Zhang (No. 33) of China also won.
–Field Level Media
