Mirra Andreeva, Linda Noskova and Emma Navarro were the highest ranked players at the WTA 1000 Qatar TotalEnergies Open in Doha on Monday, but Clara Tauson was angry in her opener, while Zheng Qinwen also enjoyed success on her return to the tour after a long break.
It doesn’t bother me at all, if I can stay under the radar, then I want to be there. I’m not someone who stays in the spotlight for long, and if people underestimate me as a player, that’s fine. That’s more than welcome, and I’ll just keep doing my thing. Emma Navarro
The night session match also saw Andreeva reach the Last 16, the fifth-seeded Russian absorbing everything Poland’s Magda Linette could throw at her in a tight opening set before pulling away for a 7-6(0) 6-1 win in an hour and 43 minutes.
“Every time I play against Magda it is not easy,” the 18-year-old said on court after reaching the third round in Doha for the first time. “She’s a great fighter. She fights for every point. She puts a lot of balls back in the court.”
“When I saw that I was going to play against her, I was a little nervous because she is a great player, a great competitor and very experienced.
“Thank you to everyone who stayed late and watched our game. It really means a lot. It’s not fun playing in an empty stadium, so thank you so much for the support.”
The match ended just after 11pm local time, and those who stayed to watch the action on Center Court saw Andreeva power through a mentally and physically demanding first set before taking full control.
While the opener lasted 73 minutes, the second lasted just 30 minutes, with Andreeva winning almost twice as many points, 29 to Linette’s 15.
There is a chance Andreeva could meet 10th seed Victoria Mboko next, depending on whether the 19-year-old Canadian gets past 41-year-old Russian veteran Vera Zvonareva in the second round on Tuesday.
Andreeva is 1-0 against Mboko after beating her in the Adelaide final last month but is yet to face Zvonareva in her career.
WTAtennis.com
Earlier, 12th seed Emma Navarro struggled in the opening stages of her first match but then made a big run to beat tricky German veteran Tatjana Maria 7-5 6-1 and break her three-match losing streak.
The American was broken in the very first game of the match, but immediately got the break back in the next, while also saving 2 break points in the 9th game to avoid going down to a break late in the opener.
After Maria failed to capitalize on her early chances, Navarro broke the German when the world number 54 was serving to stay in the first set, then took the first five games of the second set when Maria collapsed completely, and the American closed the match on serve with relative ease.
Navarro isn’t getting as much attention as he used to after an inconsistent 2025 and a slow start to 2026.
“It doesn’t matter to me at all, if I can stay under the radar then I would like to be there,” the 24-year-old former world number 8 said last month. “I’m not someone who stays in the spotlight for long and if people underestimate me as a player, that’s fine. They’re more than welcome there and I’ll just keep doing my thing.”
“Without a doubt, 2025 has been full of ups and downs. It’s often said that the second season as a pro is the hardest, and maybe that was a little bit the case for me. I have to remind myself not to overlook or underestimate the challenge that it all brings; it’s really tough and a lot of the girls are really good.”
Navarro will play Anna Kalinskaya after the Russian ran out a comfortable 6-2 6-1 winner over Spain’s Jessica Bouzas Maneiro to reach the second round.
Ninth seed Linda Noskova lost just four games to Maja Joint in the first round of the Qatar Open in a first meeting that lasted just 65 minutes.
WTAtennis.com
In a first meeting, ninth seed Linda Noskova of the Czech Republic defeated Australia’s Maya Joint 6-4 6-0 in just 65 minutes, setting up a second-round meeting with French qualifier Varvara Gracheva.
Compatriot Katerina Siniakova improved her record against Clara Tauson to 2-0 after upsetting No. 11 Denmark 6-4 6-1 to earn her 29th career Top 20 win, her first of 2026.
Siniakova heads out to meet Camila Osorio, who stepped up after Emma Raducanu retired due to illness on Monday evening.
In her first match since September, Zheng Qinwen chased 20 aces to defeat Sofia Kenin in 3 sets, making her season debut in Doha after elbow surgery.
WTAtennis.com
Earlier, Zheng Qinwen made a welcome return to the tour on Monday with a hard-fought 4-6 6-1 6-2 victory over American Sofia Kenin.
The 23-year-old Chinese has been sidelined since Wimbledon last year due to a persistent elbow injury that required surgery.
After withdrawing in the third round of the China Open later that year and postponing several planned returns, this was her first full match since her surgery, already increasing her current ranking of 26 to 23 in the live rankings.
“I think when you come back from an injury you are never completely pain free,” the Paris 2024 Olympic gold medalist said on Media Day. “There are always up and down parts. Sometimes, when you wake up, you feel better. Sometimes you wake up and you feel worse.”
“When you see how much time has passed, it starts to get difficult because you are used to training, but now you don’t get feedback. When you play a tournament, at least you get feedback of winning or losing, you know where you need to improve. You don’t get feedback if you keep training.”
“During the Australian Open, I could only serve 140-150 km/h with my elbow. If I said I wasn’t worried, it’s a lie. I was very worried at that moment. But I can only keep myself calm. I can’t do anything. But somehow I’m lucky that my elbow started feeling better. I’m really happy. I wish my elbow could keep going at this stage, and let’s keep fighting. I was praying… I just wanted my elbow to get back to normal.”
In the seventh game of the first set against Kenin, Zheng showed signs of what was to come later in the match.
Faced with a double break point, Zheng rattled off four straight points with a smart net player, supplemented by a pair of aces, to hold serve and reduce the deficit to 4-3.
That, in addition to her variety of forehand and backhand winners, especially on Kenin’s serve, signaled what would happen in the final two sets, in which she dropped just three games and served 20 aces for the match.
Zheng returns to the court on Tuesday for her second-round match against another American, qualifier Alycia Parks, who upset 15th seed Diana Shnaider of Russia in her main draw opener on Sunday.
The head-to-head score between Zheng and Parks stands at 1-1, although their last meeting dates back to 2023 and they have never met on hard courts.
Qatar TotalEnergies Open 2025 finalist Jelena Ostapenko opened her 2026 campaign by coming from a set 3-1 down to beat qualifier Anastasia Zakharova on Monday.
WTAtennis.com
Elsewhere, Latvian Jelena Ostapenko, finalist of the 2025 Qatar TotalEnergies Open, opened her 2026 campaign by coming from a set down 3-1 to beat Russian qualifier Anastasia Zakharova 6-7 6-3 6-4, and now she meets Russian eighth seed Ekaterina Alexandrova in Round 2.
Greece’s Maria Sakkari lost just four games against wildcard Zeynep Sonmez of Turkey, winning 6-1 6-3 and improving to a 2-1 lead in their head-to-head matches. She will next face Italian sixth seed Jasmine Paolini.
Wild card Janice Tjen of Indonesia needed just 69 minutes to beat Brazilian lucky loser Beatriz Haddad Maia 6-0 6-1 to set up a second-round meeting with top seed Iga Swiatek of Poland on Tuesday.
Ukraine’s Dayana Yastremska held off a late attack from Cristina Bucsa from 5-3 down in the third set to beat the Spaniard in the decisive tiebreak, 6-4 4-6 7-6(5), before meeting her compatriot, Elina Svitolina, the seventh seed.
In the end, China’s Wang
#Doha #Andreeva #Zheng #Navarro #among #winners #advance #Day #Qatar #Open