Shvedova and Karatantcheva dropped out of Australian Open

Kazakhstan tennis professionals Yaroslava Shvedova and Sesil Karatantcheva dropped out of the Australian Open after the first qualification round, Tengrinews.kz reports, referring to the official website of the Grand Slam series tournament. Shvedova played against Dutch Bibiane Schoofs to reach the next round of the competition. In first set she lost 4:6, then she won one set 6:3 and the lost her decisive match in an intensive fight 9:11. Karatantcheva's match against Japanese Nara Kurumi was also very intense. The had a tie-brake in the first set with Karatantcheva loosing 7:9. She won the second set 6:3 and lost the final one 4:6. It’s most likely that two other Kazakhstan tennis professionals Kseniya Pervak and Galina Voskoboeva will start playing in the main draw of the tournament that will be held on January 16. There were two Kazakhstan sportsmen in the men’s part of the tournament’s qualification round. Andrey Golubev played against Canadian Eric Chvojka and Yuriy Shukin played against Australian Carsten Ball. Out of four Kazakhstan tennis professionals who took part in the qualifications, Golubev is now the only one who continues playing. He won over Canadian Eric Chvojka 3:6, 6:3, 6:2. Last year Golubev and Kukushkin took part in the first round of Australian Open, but none of them reached the second round. There were no Kazakhstan tennis professionals in the women’s part of the tournament’s main draw last year.