TOP Bulgarian tennis players Magdalena Maleeva and Sesil Karatancheva progressed to the second round of the French Open in Paris.
Maleeva, 24th seeded and ranked 29th in the world, did not have much trouble defeating Rika Fujiwara from Japan 6:4, 6:2 in 70 minutes.
The Bulgarian started the match better, twice breaking the service of her opponent to take a 5:1 lead. However, Fujiwara fought back and won the next three games, but Maleeva kept her nerves cool and managed to win the first set 6:4.
The Japanese player led 2:1 in the second set, but her opponent completely dominated the next five games and won the match 6:4, 6:2.
Maleeva finished with 24 winners and just 12 unforced errors, while Fujiwara had 20 winners and 22 unforced errors. This is the second year in a row that the Japanese player has been defeated as early as the first round at the French Open.
In the next round, Maleeva will face Annabelle Medina Garrigues from Spain, who won comfortably against Hungarian Petra Madula 6:0, 6:1.
The wunderkind of Bulgarian tennis, Sesil Karatancheva, also started her campaign in Paris with a victory, although she had to battle much harder than Maleeva to progress to the next round. She lost the first set to Ukrainian Alyona Bondarenko, but managed to turn things around in her favour and came away with a 4:6, 7:5, 6:4 win.
Karatancheva won the title in the Youth French Open last year and now makes her debut among the best professional tennis players in the world.
The Bulgarian led 4:2 in the first set, but lost four consecutive games afterwards. She did not make the same mistake in the next two sets, and managed to preserve her advantage and win the match in a little less than two hours.
In the second round, Karatancheva will play against Shinobu Asagoe from Japan, 19th seeded in the tournament. In her first game in Paris this year Asagoe defeated German Julia Schruff 7:5, 6:2.