Lulu Sun heads to Wimbledon as Eastbourne run ends

Lulu Sun has lost in the second round of the Eastbourne Open, going down 6-3 6-3 to Russia’s Anna Blinkova.

Sun began her campaign at Eastbourne with a 7-5 2-6 6-3 win over top seed Daria Kasatkina for the second win over a top 20 player in her career. 

However, against Blinkova, she wasn’t quite able to match that level and lost a few key points during the 67-minute battle. 

That stopped Sun from building momentum and she had to dig deep for every point she won.

Kasatkina was a very different sort of opponent for Sun, as the Australian uses her pace around the court and all-round game to win points, rather than Blinkova who tries to overpower her opponent. 

“Definitely different styles of play, no wind today as well,” Sun said. 

“So it's definitely different conditions, different player, but you have to manage that, and today I didn’t.”

Sun was broken in the fifth game of the match, and again when serving at 3-5.

She had her best moment when she smoked a return on break point in the opening game of the second set but she had her serve broken in the fourth and eighth games.

After saving two match points, Sun wasn’t able to do it a third time, as she scrambled to try to return a serve down the T.

Sun has had two wins and three losses over the short grass court season that leads into Wimbledon.

Her results and performance did build over the three weeks, even taking into account this loss. 

“Two matches are better than one, so at least that's a positive note,” Sun said of her time in Eastbourne.  

“Just being able to play a couple more matches before Wimbledon is good.“Obviously, I would have preferred to play more and go deeper in the tournaments, but this is how it is this year, so I'm going to try to manage my best.”

Despite this loss, Sun was able to pick up one of the biggest wins of her career this week, and she’ll look to build on that as she shifts focus to next week’s Wimbledon.

Sun confirmed she will play doubles with Canada’s Leylah Fernandez at Wimbledon.

They teamed up for the Catalonia Open in May and reached the final. Fernandez is a world class doubles player and former Roland Garros finalist, so for her to agree to team up with Sun is a ringing endorsement for the 24-year-old Kiwi.