After yesterday’s scintillating round-robin match between Angelique Kerber and Dominika Cibulkova at the WTA Finals in Singapore, one wondered what the rest of the tournament would produce.

There was certainly not long to wait as today the high quality of tennis continued.

No. 8 seed, Svetlana Kuznetsova of Russia, who only arrived in Singapore yesterday after winning the VTB Kremlin Cup on Saturday, was first up against the defending champion and No. 2 seed, Agnieszka Radwanska of Poland in their White Group round-robin match.

Kuznetsova held a 12-4 lead against the Polish player, but Radwanska was the favourite going into the match.

Radwanska was up in the first set and it seemed clear that travelling between a few countries in consecutive weeks was taking their toll on the Russian, but thanks to a lapse in concentration on Radwanska’s part, Kuznetsova was able to break twice to clinch the first set.

The second set belonged to Radwanska, who upped her game and didn’t give Kuznetsova time to find her rhythm.

Enter the third set, and Radwanska continued her blistering form. Kuznetsova was clearly unhappy with her hair and took to pair of scissors during a changeover to do some restyling, which seemed to work as she immediately broke back to level the score at 2-2. There was not much separating the players in the next few games and it was only in game twelve that Kuznetsova managed to get the upper hand and break the Radwanska serve to seal the match 7-5 1-6 7-5 in two hours and forty-eight minutes.

Image courtesy of the WTA.