Semeņistaja falls in career-longest match, extends losing streak to seven

A W75 clay-court tournament has begun in Serbia, where Latvia's second-ranked tennis player Darja Semeņistaja, currently 112th in the world, suffered a surprising first-round defeat. Her opponent was Bulgaria's Denislava Gluškova, whose career-high ranking was 357th and who entered the tournament ranked 427th. The match ended 6(6):7, 6:4, 3:5, with Gluškova retiring while trailing.

Favorite unable to close it out

Semeņistaja entered the match as the clear favorite, seeded first, with bookmakers offering odds of 1.17 on her victory. Despite this, the match proved difficult and stretched to four hours in temperatures of around 30 degrees Celsius.

In the decisive third set, with the score at 3:5 and 15-30 on Semeņistaja's serve, Gluškova withdrew from the match, possibly due to a leg injury. Statistics showed a closely fought contest, with both players winning an equal number of total points (111:111), though Semeņistaja trailed in first-serve percentage.

A career-long battle

The four-hour match became the longest of Semeņistaja's career, surpassing her previous record of three hours and 27 minutes. For the first-round loss, she will receive approximately 557 US dollars and one ranking point.

The defeat comes shortly after a high point in her season — in early August, Semeņistaja won a Swiss club championship title, winning all six of her singles matches. However, on the world tour she has now lost seven consecutive matches. In late June, she also made her Wimbledon main-draw debut, entering the tournament as a "lucky loser".