Thrilling duels for Angelique Kerber and Jule Niemeier

First-round thrillers that would also be worthy of a final. Generational duels. Shooting stars against superstars. When the main round of the ecotrans Ladies Open begins on Monday in and around the magnificent Steffi Graf Stadium at LTTC "Rot-Weiß" e. V. in Berlin, top tennis at world level will be on offer from the very first rally.

When the draw for the matches was made, tournament director Barbara Rittner spoke of "treats" and "absolute eye-catchers", because that's just the way it is when you "offer a field of players at Grand Slam level", as here at the grass-court spectacle.

Angelique Kerber will start into the tournament on Tuesday. She will then be up against Linda Noskova. The 19-year-old Czech is ranked 28th in the world and attracted a lot of attention when she reached the quarter-finals at the Australian Open this year and even defeated Iga Swiatek, currently the best player in the world. Barbara Rittner says: "Linda is a very good young player. But if Angie shows her best grass court tennis, then it's an open match against one of the upcoming top stars on the tour."

Last year in Berlin, Jule Niemeier defeated an established top star on the tour when she prevailed against Ons Jabeur. Now a similarly high hurdle awaits the Dortmund player: Donna Vekic, the 2023 Berlin finalist. "Donna is good on all surfaces, especially grass. But Jule is on the up and has nothing to lose in this match," said Rittner. Croatian Vekic is 27 years old and ranked 39th in the WTA rankings.

Former number one against upcoming number one? Perhaps. But it is certain that the duel between Japan's superstar Naomi Osaka (26) and China's shooting star Quinwen Zheng (21) will provide some thrilling tennis. The Chinese world number eight recently won on clay in Rome. But since then, according to Rittner, "Naomi has improved significantly".

It wasn't just Kerber and Osaka who were already number one in the tennis world. Victoria Asarenka also spent 51 weeks at the top of the WTA rankings. She is now 34 years old, but still one of the best players ever at WTA rank 19. She will be up against Maria Sakkari (28), the first Greek woman to make it into the top 10 in world tennis. She is currently ranked ninth.

In short: from Monday onwards, the best players in the business will be playing in the Steffi Graf Stadium.

On Saturday, six German players had hoped to advance to the main draw in the first round of qualifying. But it wasn't enough, their opponents were too strong. After Ella Seidel's defeat - 2:6 and 3:6 against Emina Bektas (USA) - Noma Noha Akugue faced the clearly favored Czech Katerina Siniakova and lost 3:6 and 0:6. Anica Stabel (0:6, 2:6 against Veronika Kudermetova) and Lena Papadakis (3:6, 1:6 against Rebeka Masarova) also had to bow out with similar ease. Tamara Korpatsch, on the other hand, sensed her chance against Yullia Starodubtseva from Ukraine, who was playing for the host club LTTC "Rot-Weiß" e. V.. In the end, Korpatsch lost 1:6, 6:4 and 0:6. After that, Mara Guth was also unable to do anything against Xinyu Wang (China): 1:6, 3:6.

Tomorrow's second qualifying round will therefore take place without any German players. But Yullia Starodubtseva still has a home match atmosphere. Her chances of a ticket to the main draw are not bad in her duel with Noma Noha Akugue's conqueror, Katerina Siniakova.

The matches in the second qualifying round start at 11 a.m. on Sunday, with the tournament for the main draw also kicking off at 11 a.m. on Monday.