(Tennis news) The St. Petersburg Ladies Trophy began with a few high profile matches in the opening round. Anett Kontaveit was facing Jil Teichmann for the third time in her career in which the Estonian had never lost a set. Kontaveit broke Teichmann’s serve twice in the opening set and saved a breakpoint off her own serve. In the second set, the 24 year old for the first time took a set off her opponent as the service game was too strong and only lost 7 points out of 24 on serve.

In the third set, the world number 9 got a hold of her returns as she had five chances to take lead and could only convert one of them but it was enough for victory. Kontaveit defeated Teichmann 6-3, 1-6, 6-3.

Alizé Cornet sure did bring her form from Australia to Russia as she started well against Elise Mertens. In the first set, Cornet’s first serve could not be decoded by Mertens as well as the dropshots which also handed the 32 year the only break in the set. But after the opening set, there was a change in tactics by the Belgian as the forehands grew stronger with every strike and did not miss the targets. Mertens had 13 winners in the opening set and in the last two sets she had 31 winners to progress to the next round. Mertens defeated Cornet 3-6, 6-2, 6-4.

"It was a very tight match," Mertens said afterwards. "It could go either way, it was a battle – it's always difficult against her but I just kept fighting. I think I raised my level a little bit in the second and third sets. I stepped more into the court, the service was a bit better and I ran better."

Belinda Bencic had reached the final when she was 18 years old at St. Petersburg and reached the quarterfinal 2 years ago. The opening match was a high quality one as there were 103 winners and 151 unforced errors between the players. Veronika Kudermetova had beaten the swiss player thrice in their last six meetings and was a few points away from her fourth victory.

The double Tokyo Olympic champion did not let Kudermetova serve well or return well as the rallies were short and both players went for the winners. The Russian learned her mistakes from the opening set as she improved a bit in the second but still had to struggle to break serve and did it to take the set. In the final set, the world number 29 took a 3-1 lead as she squandered the lead as the scores were level at 3-3 and from there on the court was set for a tie break. After 2 hours and 17 minutes, the 6 time WTA tour title winner had three match points lined up in which one was demolished by a forehand return winner and one more was saved. Finally a cross court forehand went long as Bencic entered the round of 16. Bencic defeated Kudermetova 6-2, 4-6, 7-6 (7-5).

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