A difficult mission awaits Soran Kirstya in the second round of the “WTA 1000” tournament in Dubai, our athlete will meet with Russian Veronika Kudermetova.

Veronika KudermetovaPhoto: Matthieu Mirville/DPPI/LiveMedia/Shutterstock Editorial/Profimedia

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Sorana Kirstea, match with Veronika Kudermetova in the second round of WTA Dubai

Kudermetova, the 13th favorite of the competition from the Arab Emirates, needed an hour and 38 minutes to win the match against Diana Yastremska (29 WTA, wildcard).

The game on court 1 had a strange development. Veronica won the first set 6-0, but lost the second set 6-1.

The decisive set became a new monologue of the Russian woman, who gave her rival another “bagel” (6-0).

Know:

  • Kirstya and Kudermetova met three more times. The Romanian won the first matches (ITF Biarritz 2016 and US Open 2021), but the Russian won the last (WTA Istanbul 2022).
  • Sorana has already secured a prize of $20,650 and 65 points in the WTA ranking (22nd place).
  • The winner of the match between Sorana and Veronika will meet the winner of Aryna Sabalenko (2nd favorite) and Donna Vekic (31 WTA) in the round of 16.
  • We remind you that Sorana Kirstya defeated Sofia Kenin in the first round (55 WTA, Australian Open 2020 champion), score 6-3, 7-6(2).

The Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships runs from February 18 to 24 on hard, is part of the “WTA 1000” category and has a total prize pool of $3,211,715. Simona Halep won the tournament in 2015 and 2020, and the reigning champion is Barbora Krejcikova.

The main favorites from Dubai: Iga Svyatek (1), Aryna Sabalenko (2), Coco Gauf (3), Olena Rybakina (4), Ons Jaber (5/forfeit), Qinwen Zheng (6), Marketa Vondrousova (7), Maria Sakkari (8).

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