Wimbledon, day four, women’s singles round-up: Defending champ Muguruza stunned, Halep progresses

The Romanian world No 1 raced away with the 10 last games to beat the 126-ranked Zheng.

Jul 05, 2018 · 09:58 pm Updated Jul 06, 2018 · 01:41 am

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Top seed and French Open champion Simona Halep reached the Wimbledon third round on Thursday with a 7-5, 6-0 win over China’s Zheng Saisai but the big shock came later in the day as Belgium’s Alison Van Uytvanck stunned defending champion Garbiñe Muguruza 5-7, 6-2, 6-1.

Defeat for the third seed means only two of the top eight women’s seeds are left in the draw after two rounds.

Van Uytvanck, the world number 47, who had never previously beaten a top 10 player, will face Estonia’s Anett Kontaveit for a place in the last 16.

World number one Halep, a semi-finalist at Wimbledon in 2014, will face Hsieh Su-Wei of Taiwan for a place in the last 16.

The Romanian raced away with the 10 last games to beat the 126-ranked Zheng.

#Wimbledon women's seeds, an update after two rounds:

#1 Halep
#2 Wozniacki - OUT
#3 Muguruza - OUT
#4 Stephens - OUT
#5 Svitolina - OUT
#6 Garcia - OUT
#7 Pliskova
#8 Kvitova - OUT
— Ben Rothenberg (@BenRothenberg) July 5, 2018

Australian 17th seed Ashleigh Barty reached the third round for the first time with a 6-4, 7-5 win over fellow former Wimbledon junior champion Eugenie Bouchard.

Barty came back from 2-5 down in the second set to see off 2014 runner-up Bouchard who came through qualifying this year.

In what was biggest upset in the women’s draw on day four before the Muguruza result, Slovaika’s Dominika Cibulkova defeated Britain’s best hope Johanna Konta 6-3, 6-4 on center court. Konta was a semi-finalist at Wimbledon last year.

(More to follow)