Svitolina and Halep earn first points at the WTA Finals in Shenzhen

Elina Svitolina and Simona Halep lead the Purple Group after overcoming difficult opponents during the second day of play in Shenzhen.

It was Ashleigh Barty and Naomi Osaka who earned first points yesterday in the Red Group. Today the action at the WTA Finals continued with the matches in the Purple Group.

2nd seeded Pliskova and 8th seeded Svitolina were the first two players to play on Monday. The first set was a key to win as it was an extremely long tie-break that decided it. Svitolina converted the 7th set point to win it 14-12.

In the second set, Svitolina broke the first Pliskova's service game to gain the lead. Later the Czech player managed to level the score and get the lead of 3-2, but lost her service again later. Svitolina did not hesitate and used her first match point to win the second set 6-4.

Romanian Simona Halep and Canadian with Romanian roots Bianca Andreescu took care of highly-anticipated 2nd match. It was US Open champion Andreescu who started the match better. She won the first set 6-3 and was on the good path in the second.

Andreescu even had a match point in the second set leading 6-5 and having an advantage but she did not convert it and let her opponent win the set in the tie-break. Although Andreescu took Halep's service game twice in the third, Halep did it 3 times to capture the first victory at the 2019 WTA Finals.

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