The early exit of the top four seeds turned the Guangzhou Open into a hotbed of upsets, while the Chinese women’s team was praised for delivering the most consistent performances.

Following the WTA500 event in Ningbo, the WTA250 Guangzhou Open had only just entered its second day when the top-seeded players’ performances shocked many. This turmoil in the 250-level draw led fans and netizens to dub this Guangzhou tournament the biggest upset hotspot of the Chinese tennis season.

The No. 3 seed Maria faced off against the top-100 ranked player Eriyavets, and before the match, both betting odds and fans expected Maria to easily handle this relatively unknown opponent.

However, the No. 3 seed encountered challenges right from the start of the first set and eventually lost in a hard-fought three-set match. The only set she won was the second, narrowly clinched in a tiebreak. As some fans remarked during the live broadcast, if Eriyavets hadn’t faltered at the crucial tiebreak moment in the second set, Maria would have been eliminated in straight sets by this unheralded player.

The No. 8 seed Kudermetova faced French player Lajona, ranked 129th in the world. Like Maria, she was favored to advance but ultimately lost in three sets, a result that was somewhat expected.

Nonetheless, Kudermetova’s match was quite interesting upon closer examination!

In the first set, the Russian beauty played aggressively, delivering ruthless shots. Before the second set began, predictions overwhelmingly favored Kudermetova to sweep Lajona in straight sets.

Unexpectedly, at a critical moment, the Russian chose to soften her approach—perhaps worried that a two-set demolition would damage her image as a graceful player rather than a “ruthless” one. Starting from the second set, she transformed from dominant to gentle, allowing Lajona to take the set 6-1 and leveling the match.

With Kudermetova’s completely different performances in the first two sets, many in the live chat predicted that she wouldn’t remain gentle in the deciding set, warning that continuing this way would lead to a heavy price.

At the start of the final set, the Russian indeed tried to regain her aggressive edge as in the first set, but the French player carried her momentum from the second set into the decider, suppressing Kudermetova thoroughly and closing the match 6-2, causing a major upset by eliminating the No. 8 seed without giving her a chance to recover.

After the match, some joked that if Kudermetova had maintained her ruthlessness from the first set into the second, she wouldn’t have faced such a disappointing reversal, saying, “Being overturned at the end must have stunned her—she played with fire and got burned.”

Of course, describing the intense battle between Kudermetova and Lajona as a “courtesy exchange” is a playful comment; in reality, it was Kudermetova’s unstable form that indirectly gave Lajona the chance to stage the comeback.

Post-match, some remarked that besides causing Kudermetova a sleepless night in Guangzhou, this defeat highlighted many areas for her to reflect on—holding a strong position but ultimately losing disastrously left many speechless.

The No. 7 seed, British player Jones, faced China’s Wang Xiyu. Before the match, there were concerns about Wang’s performance. However, playing on home soil where she won her first tour title, Wang quickly transformed, delivering a steady and precise performance against the No. 7 seed, ultimately causing a major upset by winning two sets 6-4 each at the Guangzhou 250 event.

The early exits of the No. 3 seed Maria, No. 7 seed Jones, and No. 8 seed Kudermetova were already surprising, but the biggest shock came when top seed Manero lost to qualifier and Chinese-descendant Sun Lulu, marking the biggest upset since the start of the Guangzhou 250 tournament.

With the top four seeds bowing out shortly after the Guangzhou Open began, fans and netizens raised an intriguing question: why did the top seeds perform so poorly here?

In fact, the early departures of the top seeds, led by No. 1 seed Manero, were not entirely due to their own shortcomings. The Guangzhou 250 event simply lacked top-tier players. Consider that Manero, ranked 40th in the world, was still the top seed, indicating the players’ skill levels were quite close, making any result plausible.

In contrast to the top seeds’ frequent upsets, the Chinese women’s team performed well collectively at this Guangzhou event. Except for Guo Hanyu’s exit, Wang Xiyu, Wang Yafan, and Zhang Shuai all advanced smoothly, each winning in straight sets. Their solid showings were praised as a sign of stability in China’s tour events, unlike previous tournaments like the China Open and Wuhan Open, where Chinese players were eliminated in rapid succession, frustrating fans.(Source: Tennis Home; Author: Moonlit River’s Starry Sky)