The six Portuguese players in the singles main draw of the ninth edition of the Figueira da Foz Ladies Open (third as ITF W100) met their first opponents yesterday in the tournament that the Portuguese Tennis Federation is organizing until Sunday at the Tennis Club da Figueira da Foz. For Francisca Jorge and Matilde Jorge, it´s the last chance to book a flight to New York.
With no “home” players in the final qualifying matches, the draw for the main draw gained renewed interest and quickly unfolded into scenarios and accounts with the US Open qualifying involved.
Ranked 239th and 246th respectively in Monday´s update, Francisca Jorge and Matilde Jorge need to climb several places in the WTA rankings to ensure their participation in the last Grand Slam of the season and coincided on the route of the two headliners of the Figueira da Foz Ladies Open.
The eldest will face first seed Celine Naef (169th) and the youngest - the author of the draw - just missed out on second seed Elena Pridankina (182nd) by a single point, starting her campaign with Dutch qualifier Eva Vedder (241st) before a possible second round meeting with the Russian, who in her opening match faces wild card Amália Suciu (1405th).
Among the other invitees, Ana Filipa Santos (1443rd in her week back in the rankings) was also drawn against one of the favorites, in this case the American Hina Inoue (217th), the eighth highest-ranked player.
Fresh from Porto, where she shone by reaching the quarter-finals of a WTA 125 for the first time, Angelina Voloshchuk (656th, following a rise of 180 places) was drawn against Spain´s Marina Bassols Ribera (232nd, former 105th and holder of two WTA 125 titles in three finals.
Teresa Franco Dias (1358th), meanwhile, will start the second main draw of her career in an ITF W100 event against former top 100 player Maria Timofeeva (currently 264th).
Among the six national representatives, three will play today: Amália Suciu opens the program on Centre Court at 11 am, Francisca Jorge plays the second match of the day on the main court and Teresa Franco Dias plays the third match on Court 1, not before 3 pm.
Source: https://www.cm-figfoz.pt
Image source: https://www.tenis.pt