Serena Williams, Roger Federer Drop Losses

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Published on January 5 2017 6:22 am
Last Updated on January 5 2017 6:22 am

By ESPN

Top seed Serena Williams hasn't held back in assessing her error-strewn performance during a shock defeat at the ASB Classic, describing it as "unprofessional".

The world No.2 and winner of 22 grand slam singles titles lost her second-round match to fellow American Madison Brengle 6-4 6-7 (3-7) 6-4.

She struggled with the windy conditions in Auckland on Wednesday, producing a host of unforced errors - 88 according to one count - against a dogged opponent who kept returning the ball.

Williams saved three match points, but then double-faulted to hand world No.72 Brengle a huge victory after two hours and 13 minutes on court.

"You really have to go back to the drawing board, because it's quite frankly unprofessional," she said.

She added: "Eighty-eight is way too many unforced errors.

"You can't expect to win hitting that many errors."

She said she "abhorred" the conditions, which were "just way too much for me", but also acknowledged that Brengle had had to put up with them as well.

"I can take solace in the fact the conditions won't be like this in Melbourne (for the Australian Open)," said Williams after just her second match in four months.

"This is almost not a great opportunity to assess your game, to be honest."

Williams had conceded just one game in the pair's previous meeting in Madrid in 2015.

It had looked plain sailing again as she raced out to a 4-1 lead, but Brengle broke back twice to go one set up.

Brengle then went a break up in the second set, but Williams broke back and then levelled in the tiebreak.

The third set went to serve, until Williams produced her fourth double fault of the match to go with her nine aces.


Roger Federer Stunned at Hopman Cup

Roger Federer hit a road bump on his comeback trail from injury, losing to German teenage sensation Alexander Zverev in three sets at the Hopman Cup in Perth on Wednesday night.

The 17-time grand slam title winner went down 7-6 (7-1) 6-7 (4-7) 7-6 (7-4) in 150 minutes as the Swiss snatched a 1-0 lead in their tie.

That Federer lost to the 19 year-old, ranked 24 in the world, wasn't a complete surprise; he's done that before.

More surprising was that he led the first set 5-2, and served for it at 5-3, but still lost it and ultimately the match.

There wasn't much between the two throughout.

In the second set, Federer only lost four points on serve, but found himself in a second tiebreaker.

In the third, he remained calm as he saved two break points in his second service game; and another before taking a 5-4 lead.

But Zverev wouldn't go away - and with first serves consistently over 200km/h he showed why he's gaining so much attention in world tennis.

He now he holds a 2-1 record over Federer, downing him in Halle, Germany last year.