Kazakh tennis player Zhibek Kulambaeva successfully advanced past the first round of the WTA 250 tournament in Chennai, India, infohub.kz reports.
In her opening match, the Kazakh, ranked 473rd in the world, faced Japan's Mei Yamaguchi, who sits at 282nd in the WTA rankings.
Despite her opponent's higher ranking, Kulambaeva won in straight sets, 6-4, 7-5. The match lasted 2 hours and 1 minute.
Throughout the match, the Kazakh player showed strong returning, winning 62% of points on her opponent's second serve and converting seven of ten break points. Kulambaeva also won 83 of 150 rallies, or 55% of the total points.
Notably, Zhibek reached the main draw through qualifying and will now continue her bid for a place in the quarterfinals.
In the second round, the Kazakh will face the winner of the match between Japan's Moyuka Uchijima and third seed Magda Linette of Poland.