Rio 2016 Olympics, Tennis: 5 most shocking upsets from Round 1
The Rio Olympics are up and running and so far, lots of exciting action have happened at Rio. The tennis tournament will be heading towards its second round of matchups today and a couple of upsets have already been created on Round-1.
Top 10 seeds Agnieszka Radwanska, Venus Williams and Roberta Vinci got knocked out in the opening rounds to lower-ranked opponents.
However, the upset department just got charged up with the addition of World No.1 Novak Djokovic who was beaten by 2009 US Open Champion and current World No. 145 Juan Martin Del Potro in the first round. As we await the second round of matchups, let’s take a look at the biggest upsets from Round-1.
#5. Timea Bacsinszky’s defeat to Zhang Shuai
This year has been pretty eventful for Zhang Shuai who began this year’s Australian Open ranked 133rd and by the end of the tournament, her ranking went up to 65th as she reached the quarter-finals of the tournament, beating the likes of Simona Halep in the process. She conquered another much higher ranked opponent at Rio in Timea Bacsinszky.
The 27-year old Swiss who was seeded 12th at Rio had been having a good run of form since last year which helped her reach the Top 10 for the first time in her career. Bacsinszky took the first set via a tiebreak before Zhang made a splendid comeback to take the second set 6-4 and the third set via another tiebreak.
Zhang will now take on Germany’s Laura Siegmund in the second round. However, Bacsinszky’s stay at Rio isn’t completely as she is playing in the Women’s doubles tournament alongside the legendary Martina Hingis.