The Australian Open got underway with some surprising results on the men’s side with Novak Djokovic suffering an early upset that absolutely shocked tennis fans. However, the surprises weren’t limited to the men’s side by any means as there were a number of upsets on the women’s side as well. Here is a look at the biggest surprises from the first week of the Australian Open on the women’s side.
Agnieszka Radwanska Upset By Mirjana Lucic-Baroni
The third-seeded and former Australian Open semi-finalist is undoubtedly the biggest surprise loser from the first week of the tournament on the women’s side as she dropped her opening round match to the unranked Mirjana Lucic-Baroni 6-3, 6-2. Radwanska became the highest seed ever to fall in the opening round on the women’s side of the Australian Open and it left the crowd at the Margaret Court Arena completely baffled. Radwanska, who had reached the semi-finals of this tournament in each of the last two years, managed just eight winners compared to 33 compiled by Lucic-Baroni in the match. It marked Radwanska’s earliest elimination at a Grand Slam tournament since her first round elimination all the way back in 2009.
Simona Halep Upset By Shelby Rogers
Simona Halep was expected to go deep in to the Australian Open as the tournament’s fourth seed, but she didn’t make it past the opening round as she was upset6-3, 6-1 by Shelby Rogers. The match lasted just over an hour as Rogers took it to her competition and while it was definitely a surprise to see Halep go down again early on it isn’t completely unprecedented. Halep suffered an opening round loss to Japan’s Shuai Zhang at this tournament a year ago, making this the second straight time she was eliminated in the first round of the Australian Open.
Carla Suarez Navarro Upset By Sorana Cirstea
Romanian Sorana Cirstea provided one of the early surprises of the tournament when she upset Carla Suarez Navarro 6-2, 7-6 (2) in their third round match on Wednesday. Cirstea, who is ranked No. 78 in the world, needed only an hour-and-a-half to take down the tournament’s 10th seed. Nobody predicted the major underdog Cirstea would be able to find a way to get the job done but she did exactly that in another surprising outing.
Elina Svitolina Upset By Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova
The 11th-seeded Elina Svitolina ended up faltering to the 24th-seeded Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova 7-5, 4-6, 6-3. After watching Svetlana Kuznetsova pushed to the limit in her match against Jelena Jankovic it seemed as though there was bound to be another upset in the round and the Russian Pavlyuchenkova delivered with a surprise win that she will never forget. The women’s side of the bracket has been fairly unpredictable to this point so it will be very interesting to see how things play out continuing with some intriguing matchups this coming weekend.
Eugenie Bouchard Defeated By Coco Vandeweghe
It wasn’t long ago that Bouchard was one of the tennis starlets on the rise. It’s been a long time since Canada had a top-notch tennis player on the women’s side but two years ago – almost three now – it looked like Bouchard would be that woman. She made it to the Wimbledon final as well as the semifinals at the Australian Open and French Open. However, she’s had quite the hard fall from grace ever since. Last year, she was just 19-13 on the hard courts, went 0-2 on clay and was 5-4 on grass. That’s far from top-notch.
The struggles have moved into the 2017 calendar as well for her as the Canadian stumbled early on in the 2017 Australian Open. While Coco Vandeweghe is a good player on the women’s side – maybe Bouchard’s equal – she dissed her right after the match when questioned by reporters. Vandeweghe was asked how big of a win this was for her and she replied that it wasn’t that big at all. Bouchard, who was once deemed to be the woman that would become the No. 1 player in the world, has since stumbled to the point where she’ll probably fall out of the Top 50. It’s been surprising to see just how far she’s tumbled in such a short period of time.
Click here to bet on tennis – including all of the major grand slams this season – and many other sports at BetDSI!
