Saarland: A dominant Carolina Marin started her 2020 SaarLorLux Open campaign with a comfortable win over Bulgaria’s Hristomira Popovska on Wednesday.
The 27-year-old Spaniard barely broke a sweat as she strolled to a straight-sets victory, 21-9, 21-6 in 19 minutes.
It was Marin’s first match since losing the Denmark Open final to Nozomi Okuhara on Oct 18, 2020, and the top-seeded player will meet Fabienne Deprez of Germany in the second round.
In another women’s singles first-round match, No. 3 seed Kirsty Gilmour of Scotland made to work hard by Line Christophersen of Denmark before overcoming the Dane 21-14, 13-21, 21-18 in 44 minutes to next meet Linda Zetchiri of Bulgaria.
The men’s singles competition saw World No. 17 Rasmus Gemke from Denmark prevailed in a grueling three-set encounter against compatriot and World No. 83 Kim Bruun on Wednesday, winning 21-17, 17-21, 21-18 in the longest match of the day which lasted 71 minutes.
Gemke will take on Max Weisskirchen of Germany on Thursday.
Earlier in the afternoon, Denmark’s World No. 42 Hans-Kristian Solberg Vittinghus suffered a surprise 17-21, 19-21 second-round defeat by France’s Toma Junior Popov.
