Madrid (Spain) – After Miami’s frustrating campaign, the duo formed by Luísa Stefani and Dutch Demi Schuurs returned to winning ways. And their debut on the fast clay of the WTA 1000 in Madrid was very calm: they scored 6/1 and 6/2 over Poland’s Magda Linette and China’s Shuai Zhang.
Top 3 seeds in the tournament, the two will face two more Chinese women, Xinyu Wang and Saisai Zheng, who also had a calm first round and beat Monica Niculescu and Alycia Parks, by 6/1 and 6/3.
The partnership between Stefani and Schuurs began at the Australian Open, where they reached the quarterfinals and returned with the title in Doha. But it didn’t go well in Dubai and Miami, where they lost straight away, and reached the quarterfinals in Indian Wells.
With this campaign, the two occupy sixth place in the season ranking, which qualifies for the November Finals. There is good scope for progress in Madrid, as the current fourth-placed teams (Nicole Melichar and Ellen Perez) have been eliminated and the fifth-placed teams (Gabriela Dabrowski and Erin Routliffe) are not competing.
In the individual ranking, Stefani occupies 10th place for another week and could even move up to seventh place if she wins the title.
