Two-time champion Victoria Azarenka (Belarus) started with a win at the Australian Open.
The 24th-seeded Victoria Azarenka, who won the trophies in 2012 and 2013, won against 2020 Melbourne winner Sofia Kenin (USA) by 2-0 (6:4, 7:6) in the most intriguing match of the women’s first round.
The Belarusian rallied from a 0:3 game deficit in the first set and in the second she fended off a set point at 5:6 and a serve of her own, then took four points in a row to take a 5-2 lead into the tiebreak and it proved decisively.
The runner-up from last season and 13th-seeded, Danielle Collins (USA) had a lot of difficulties at the start against Anna Kalinskaya (Russia), but she still came to success with 2-1 (7:5, 5:7, 6:4). She will face Karolina Muchova (Czech Republic), who handled the qualifier Lesia Tsurenko (Ukraine) by 2-0 (6:2, 6:1).
Two other American women also recorded victories in the first round. The 3rd-seeded Jessica Pegula decisively won over the Romanian Jaqueline Cristian by 2-0 (6:1, 6:0), and the 7th-seeded Coco Gauff triumphed by 2-0 (6:4, 6:1) against Katerina Siniakova (Czech Republic). Coco Gauff’s opponent in the second round will be British Emma Raducanu, after the 2021 US Open champion eliminated German Tamara Korpatsch by 2-0 (6:3, 6:2).
Last season’s Wimbledon champion Elena Rybakina (Kazakhstan), who is 22nd-seeded, handled the start in Melbourne with Italy’s Elisabetta Cocciaretto by 2-0 (7:5, 6:3) after recovering from an early break passive in the second set.
