Chinese tennis player Wang Qiang upsets American Sloane Stephens in the first round of the 2016 Australian Open. (Photo : Getty Images)
World no. 110 Wang Qiang of China pulled off a stunning upset over world no. 26 Sloane Stephens of the USA, defeating her higher-ranked opponent in straight sets, 6-3, 6-3, during the first round of the 2016 Australian Open held at the Melbourne Park in Melbourne on Monday.
The 24-year-old Wang eliminated Sloane, two years her junior and an Australian Open semifinalist in 2013, to complete what said to be was "one of the biggest upsets of the opening day", as per Xinhuanet.
"Wang became just the second player, in the women's draw, to knock out a seeded player to date, with Russian Margarita Gasparyan beating 17-seed Sara Errani", the report also mentioned.
The Tianjin, China native, who just became 24 on Jan. 14, controlled the match from the start with her remarkable baseline game en route to an easy first set victory.
Wang continued her impressive performance in the second set, breaking right in its first game and then breaking two more times on the way to the upset.
"(Stephens) is a good player ... I just tried my best," the gracious Wang said afterward. "It was my first time playing at Hisense (Arena), so (I was) a little bit nervous."
The young Stephens was also polite in defeat even as she was obviously disappointed about her performance.
"Today was definitely one of those bad days," said Stephens, via ABC News. "Nothing was going my way. A lot of shots that I'd like to make, that I normally make weren't going in. A lot of opportunities slipped away."
Stephens actually started the game aggressively, going on a 3-1 lead right in the first set. However, she lost 10 consecutive games to Wang to completely fall out of the contest.
