Tennis player Laura Siegemund started her first WTA finals with a surprising victory.
With her doubles partner Vera Zvonareva, the 35-year-old from Metzingen prevailed in her opening match in Cancun, Mexico, against the Czechs Barbora Krejcikova and Katerina Siniakova 6:3, 6:7 (6:8), 10:5. The seven-time Grand Slam winners Krejcikova/Siniakova won the finals in 2021 and were in the final in 2022.
Siegemund and Swonarewa led 5-2 in the second set and missed two match points in the tiebreak. In the third set, which was played as a “match tiebreak,” they had clear advantages.
In the “Mahahual Group” Siegemund/Zvonareva will meet the Americans Coco Gauff and Jessica Pegula as well as Gabriela Dabrowski/Erin Routliffe (Canada/New Zealand), against whom they lost in the final of the US Open. Siegemund and her partner had recently been in strong form and won the tournament in Nanchang/China in mid-October.
The 39-year-old Zvonareva is competing in the doubles at the WTA finals for the second time; in 2007 she only failed in the semi-finals with Yelena Lichovtseva.