The Wimbledon 2023 champion Marketa Vondrousova (Czech Republic) qualified for the third round of the WTA 1000 Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships after defeating Peyton Stearns (USA) by 2-1 (6:1, 5:7, 6:2) in 2:05 hours.
The Czech tennis player, who is 7th-seeded in the Masters’ tournament, started the match strongly, making 3 breaks in the first set and won it by 6:1 in less than half an hour.
However, Peyton Stearns made a strong start of the second set with two breaks, but Marketa Vondrousova succeeded to return them and equalized to 4:4. Both players exchanged another break for 5:5, when Peyton Stearns succeeded to break again and closed the set at 7:5 after one hour of play.
The third set started hardly for Marketa Vondrousova, who needed to save three breakpoint already in the first game. After that both players won their serve games until the Czech player succeeded to make a break and take a lead by 4:2. This was the cornerstone in the set and after another break, the Czech tennis player won by 6:2 and thus took the victory.
In the third round, she will face the 12th-seeded Russian tennis player Liudmila Samsonova who qualified after walkover of her compatriot Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova due to illness.
Jasmine Paolini (Italy) also advanced in the tournament after defeating Leylah Fernandez (Canada) by 2-0 (6:3, 6:4), while Magdalena Frech (Poland) eliminated Petra Martic (Croatia) after 2-1 (6:4, 1:6, 6:2) and the 8th-seeded Maria Sakkari (Greece) won her match versus Emma Navarro (USA) by 2-0 (6:2, 6:4).
