WTA: Budapest: opening victories for Lisicki and Barthel, Lottner retires

Sabine Lisicki has continued her way back into the top 100 of the tennis world with a victory at work. A good two weeks after her semi-final appearance in Taipei/Taiwan, the 173th ranked number 173 at the start of the WTA tournament in Budapest defeated French Pauline Parmentier.

After indisposed introduction in the first set Lisicki won 0:6,6:4,6:2. After 1:37 hours, the 28-year-old from Berlin converted her second match ball. The preliminary decision was made when the former Wimbledon finalist managed to break 4-2 in the third set. In the last 16, Lisicki will face the winner of the duel between fourth seeded Romanian Sorana Cirstea and Viktoria Kuzmova from Slovakia.

Fed Cup player Mona Barthel also took a step out of the depth of her form. The 27-year-old from Neumünster won her first-round match against the Ukrainian Kateryna Kozlova 7-6,5-7,6-0 and thus prevented her fifth opening defeat at the sixth tournament this year. In the previous week Barthel had lost her first match in Doha against Agnieszka Radwanska (Poland) despite her good performance. The next round is waiting for the world rankings-74. in the Hungarian capital the winner of the duel between Tatjana Maria (Bad Saulgau) and the Hungarian Timea Babos (No. 3).

In contrast, Antonia Lottner (Düsseldorf) had to retire from Budapest in round one. Eight days after their surprisingly strong Fed Cup debut with the victory over Belarus’ top player Alexandra Sasnowitsch, the world rankings were defeated-149. of the nearly 100 places above her Croatian Petra Martic noted in 79 minutes with 4:6,2:6. Carina Witthöft (Hamburg) will also be competing in the $250,000 tournament on the Danube.