Vera Zvonareva claimed her first top-20 victory in two and a half years with a battling 6-2, 7-6(7/5) defeat of recent Tokyo champion Veronika Kudermetova to make the second round in Zhengzhou on Tuesday.
The former world No 2, ranked 369 in singles, was sidelined for 11 months with a foot injury between March 2022 and February 2023 and had posted just two tour-level main draw match-wins this season coming into the WTA 500 event Zhengzhou.
The 39-year-old Russian made it through qualifying this week with wins over Colombian youngster Camila Osorio and Hungarian veteran Timea Babos and will next take on Ukrainian world No 28 Anhelina Kalinina.
Zvonareva, who made the Ningbo quarterfinals two weeks ago, led 4-2 in the second set and served for the match at 6-5 but couldn’t close as the 16th-ranked Kudermetova kept fighting back.
But despite squandering those opportunities, Zvonareva prevailed in the tiebreak, converting her first match point on a missed volley from her ninth-seeded compatriot to move into the last 16 with a one-hour 56-minute victory.
What an upset!
— WTARussians (@WTArussians) October 10, 2023
39-year-old Vera Zvonareva stuns higher-ranked compatriot Veronika Kudermetova 6-2, 7-6 in the first round of the Zhengzhou Open.
Defended well today and made Veronika hit one more ball each time, which forced her to commit more errors. pic.twitter.com/GRynJF32Pu
"It’s been a long season but I only started playing singles in the middle of the season so maybe I feel a little bit fresher than some of the other players," said Zvonareva.
Meanwhile, last week’s Beijing runner-up Liudmila Samsonova needed just 69 minutes to move past Tatjana Maria 6-3, 6-3 and book a second-round meeting with another German, Laura Siegemund.
Russia's Daria Kasatkina had a last-minute change of opponent when lucky loser Babos replaced Italian Elisabetta Cocciaretto in the draw but the No 8 seed still made it through 6-1, 7-6(7) in just under two hours.
"Evening matches are always tricky matches, plus I got a change of opponent today, which is never easy because for me it requires some changes before the match and for the opponent it's like a second chance. I know mentally how it feels, it gives you the wings to fly and it's very dangerous, so at the end I'm happy how the match ended but it was a very difficult and tricky match," said Kasatkina, who next takes on 20-year-old Chinese Bai Zhuoxuan.
No 3 seed Maria Sakkari and No 6 seed Caroline Garcia will kick off their Zhengzhou campaigns on Wednesday with the former facing home favourite Zheng Qinwen and the latter squaring off with Italian Jasmine Paolini.