Next bitter bankruptcy for Tatjana Maria! The 2022 Wimbledon semi-finalist lost to Hungarian Panna Udvardy at the start of the WTA tournament in Osaka, Japan. It was Maria’s third defeat in a row – and yet an extremely surprising one.
After more than three hours of play, Tatjana Maria had to admit defeat to Panna Udvardy with 6:2, 4:6 and 6:7 (5:7). An unexpected defeat for the 36-year-old, who was in second place at the hard court event.
However, Maria is likely to be particularly annoyed by the fact that she was eliminated. In the decider, with the score at 6:6 and Udvardy serving, the DTB player had two match points that she couldn’t use. In the following tie-break, Maria quickly moved ahead to 5-1 before Udvardy scored six points in a row and decided the match with the first opportunity.
In addition, before the game there was actually very little going for the 24-year-old number 126 in the world, who had lost six times in a row before the game against Maria and had only won two games in the past three months.
Tennis star Jule Niemeier continues to look for her form in 2022
Shortly after Maria’s exit, Jule Niemeier, the last German hope, also failed in Osaka. The 24-year-old from Dortmund (number 136 in the world) lost to the Russian Anna Kalinskaya (number 92 in the world) 6:4 and 6:4.
Niemeier has been looking for almost the entire year for the form that brought her to the quarterfinals of Wimbledon and the round of 16 of the US Open in 2022. Recently she even changed her trainer.
However, eight double faults and only 33 percent of points won with the second serve were not enough to finally aim for a place in the top 100 of the WTA world rankings.
Anna-Lena Friedsam was also eliminated in the first round in Osaka on Monday.