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    Tennis

    Kenin survives scare to open title defense

    1 Min Read

    Sofia Kenin faced an unexpected early challenge to open her title defense at the Australian Open Tuesday.

    The No. 4 seed American was broken in the fourth game of her opening match and found herself in a 3-1 hole to Austrailian Maddison Inglis.

    Inglis turned her 3-1 edge in the first set into a 5-4 advantage before Kenin rallied for a 7-5 win.

    Inglis made Kenin work for the second set as well, but the reigning WTA Player of the Year prevailed to advance to the second round, 7-5, 6-4.

    Sofia Kenin of The United States of America plays a backhand in her Women's Singles first round match against Maddison Inglis of Australia during day two of the 2021 Australian Open at Melbourne Park on February 09, 2021 in Melbourne, Australia. (Photo by Cameron Spencer/Getty Images)
    Sofia Kenin faced a tougher than expected first-round test from wild card and World No. 133 Inglis. (Cameron Spencer/Getty Images)

    Favorites roll into Round 2

    Kenin joins a group of Day 1 favorites who advanced to the second round including Serena Williams, Novak Djokovic and Naomi Osaka. Though her road was tougher than most.

    Kenin, 22, is coming off a career year that saw her advance to the French Open final in addition to defeating world No. 1 Ashleigh Barty en route to last year’s Australian Open Final victory over Garbiñe Muguruza.

    She advances to take on the winner between Latvia’s Anastasija Sevastova and Estonia’s Kaia Kanepi in the second round.

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    This article was originally published by Yahoo.com. Read the original article here.

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