Second day of main draw in WTA 500 Adelaide 2 tournament brough a couple of fascinating duels between the top players of women's field. Veronika Kudermetova won a thrilling three-setter against Victoria Azarenka. The Russian, ranked in the top 10, was in quite a trouble, losing first set easily 2-6, failing to win her three consecutive service games. Second set was more tight with no breaks at all, but first few points of tiebreak seemed for a straight sets win for Azarenka, who was leading 3-0. Then, Kudermetova clicked her gear, winning 7 out of 8 next points, moving into the decider, which was concluded with just one break in 9th game of the set and ended 6-4 for Kudermetova.

Qinwen Zheng, who needed to spend 3:36h on court to win her quali match against Anastasia Potapova had not an easy run today as well. Despite a horrendous effort in a boling heat on sunday, young Chinese managed to endure Shelby Rogers in another three-setter, 4-6 6-4 6-0. This match was a bit shorter though, "just" 2:25h on the clock.

The main event of today's gameplan was a match between Paula Badosa and Anett Kontaveit, played in the evening session on Centre Court. It was a clash of two big names, who earned their career highest ranks last year, being a top stars for a while, both spending some time as a world number #2. Both Badosa and Kontaveit capitalized on a great finish of 2021 season, which made their slip down out of top 10 in the ranks, not duplicating their form in recent months.

Badosa showed up with a stunning performance in first set. The Spaniard has not only faced any one single breakpoint to defend, once she has dropped just two (!) points in all her service games. Second set started great for Badosa as well, while she broke Kontaveit in first game. First troubles came in 4th game when Estonian managed to create her first breakpoints chances in the match and leveled the score. Another game brought another opportunity for Kontaveit, but Badosa held and did not allow her opponent to take the momentum on her side. She won all the three games till the end, breaking Kontaveit twice and moving to the R16 in quite a style with 77% first serve accuracy. Kontaveit showed some decent performance as well, but it was not enough for overcoming Badosa, who was just superb today.

Wednesday will be a busy day in Adelaide with a lot of quality matches to watch. All the 16 players will show up, as the tournament needs to finish on Saturday because of the upcoming Australian Open which starts in Melbourne om Monday.

Here is the schedule for tomorrow:

Danielle Collins (10 - Jil Teichmann (Q)
Petra Kvitova - Qinwen Zheng (Q)
Beatriz Haddad Maia (11) - Amanda Anisimova (LL)
Anna Kalinskaya (Q) - Belinda Bencic (8)
Barbora Krejcikova - Daria Kasatkina (5)
Kaia Kanepi (Q) - Paula Badosa (9)
Ekaterina Alexandrova - Veronika Kudermetova (6)
Carolina Garcia (4) - Katerina Siniakova (Q)