WTA Elite Trophy: Wild card Zhang Shuai, Elina Svitolina win opening matches at Zhuhai

Beijing: Chinese wild card Zhang Shuai romped to a 6-1, 6-1 victory over Switzerland’s Timea Bacsinszky on the first day of the WTA Elite Trophy on home turf on Tuesday. It was a welcome change of form for the 27-year-old, who last month pulled out injured from the Tianjin Open without hitting a ball, after her quarter-final exit from the China Open in Beijing. [caption id=“attachment_3084780” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] Zhang Shuai of China celebrates her victory. AFP [/caption] Bacsinszky, the world number 18, only won five points on 28-ranked Zhang’s serve in the entire match in the southern city of Zhuhai. Zhang was considering retirement until her progress to the quarter-finals of the Australian Open in January started the best season of her career. But she still needed a wild card to enter the season-ending $2.2 million tournament. The tournament in Zhuhai features the leading players on the women’s tour who didn’t qualify for the season-ending WTA Finals in Singapore last week. Carla Suarez Navarro withdrew because of a right wrist injury and was replaced by Hungarian alternate Timea Babos, who will play Bacsinszky on Wednesday. In the day’s other round-robin matches, Ukrainian fourth seed Elina Svitolina lost the first set against the Netherlands’ Kiki Bertens, but came back to prevail 2-6, 6-4, 6-2 in an hour and 52 minutes. The last match saw Italy’s Roberta Vinci fall to the Czech Republic’s Barbora Strycova in two games, 6-4, 6-3.