The opening day of the French Open witnessed a huge upset as women’s top seed Angelique Kerber suffered a second consecutive first-round defeat at Roland Garros at the hands of World No.40 Ekaterina Makarova 6-2, 6-2, thus making her the first ever top seed to be eliminated in the first round of the French Open.
Kerber replicated her performance here last year when she was stunned by eventual semi-finalist Kiki Bertens in three sets. Kerber made plenty of mistakes on her serve and did not look to even give a challenge to the Russian. In fact, it seemed a very routine victory for Makarova.
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The two-time Grand Slam semi-finalist and a former World No.8 will now take on the winner of the all-Ukrainian matchup between Lesia Tsurenko and Katerina Kozlova.
Kerber has been having a disastrous tour this year as she is yet to defeat a player ranked in the Top 20 of the ATP rankings with her most notable performances being reaching the quarter-finals of the Indian Wells Masters and the semi-finals of the Dubai Tennis Championships.
Kerber had a disastrous clay-court season, retiring in the third round of the Madrid Open against Eugenie Bouchard which was followed by a second round defeat to Estonian Anna Kontaveit.
Ever since reaching the top of the WTA rankings after winning the US Open last year, Kerber has not done much justice to her ranking except reaching the final of the WTA Finals at Singapore.
Kerber has only been able to retain her World No.1 ranking due to Serena William’s pregnancy break. However, her defeat means that Karolina Pliskova will become World No.1 provided she reaches the final at least. The second-seeded Czech will play her first round match against China’s Zheng Saisai.
