Alize Cornet Sandrine THESILLAT / PANORAMIC
The French Alizé Cornet was eliminated as soon as she entered the fray in the Californian desert of Indian Wells by the Russian Evgeniya Rodina (427th in the world) 6-2 7-5 Wednesday in 1h02 minutes. The 33-year-old Niçoise, 68th in the world, who is still chasing a first success this season, is now six defeats in a row.
Broken from his first serve, Cornet ran behind the score throughout the first set. In the second set, and again after the loss of her serve, she managed to lead at 5-4, before finally letting her opponent chain 3 games and win the match on her first match point. There is only one Blue left in the Californian desert tournament, Caroline Garcia, seeded number 5 in this first WTA 1000 of the year.
Exempted from the first round, she will enter the competition against the winner of the meeting between the American Danielle Collins (31st in the world) and the Hungarian Dalma Galfi (80th).
Among the men, Ugo Humbert (77th at the ATP) won in just over an hour and a half 6-2 7-6 (8/6) against the Spaniard Bernabé Zapata, 42nd in the world, and will face the N.25 seeded Canadian Denis Shapovalov in the second round.