Two-time Grand Slam champion Victoria Azarenka opened the season-ending WTA 1000 Guadalajara Open, Mexico with a prize fund of 2.527 million USD.
Victoria Azarenka won by 2-0 (6:4, 6:2) over the 20-year-old Russian Elina Avanesyan. She took the first set with a single break in the seventh game and in the second set won four straight games to triumph.
In the second round, the tennis player from Belarus will meet the top-seeded Paula Badosa (Spain).
Elina Avanesyan made her debut in the main draw of a WTA 1000 competition, after replacing China’s Zhang Shuai, who withdrew due to illness, as a “lucky loser” from the qualifiers at the last minute.
The 2019 US Open champion Bianca Andreescu (Canada) also got off to a successful start with a 2-0 (6:2, 6:4) win over Swiss left-hander Jil Teichmann. Thus, she expects a meeting with the 16th-seeded Petra Kvitova (Czech Republic), who eliminated Bernarda Pera (USA) by 2-0 (6:3, 7:5). Petra Kvitova overcame a deficit of 1:3 in the first set, and in the second part made a decisive break in the 11th game, then closed the match on her own serve.
Russia’s Liudmila Samsonova, who has won tournaments in Washington, Cleveland and Tokyo since August, defeated Estonian player Kaia Kanepi by 2-0 (6:1, 7:5) in the first round after coming from a 1:3 game deficit in the second part to to record their 18th win in their last 21 games. She expects the 2nd-seeded in the scheme Aryna Sabalenka (Belarus).
Tokyo 2020 Olympic champion Belinda Bencic (Switzerland) won hard against last season’s US Open finalist Leylah Annie Fernandez (Canada) by 2-0 (7:5, 6:7, 6:3). Tenth-seeded Bencic could have reached success much earlier, but squandered a 4:2 game lead in the second set, and missed five more match points in the subsequent tiebreak. She trailed 5:2 in the third set and held her lead to set up a meeting with 2017 US Open winner Sloane Stephens. The American convincingly handled the Czech qualifier Linda Fruhvirtova by 2-0 (6:0, 6:2).
The competition in Guadalajara is the last of the WTA 1000 series before the final best-of-eight tournament of the season in Fort Worth (USA), which started at the end of October. Mexico features six of the top 10 tennis players, but world number one Iga Swiatek (Poland) decided to take a break after last week’s triumph in San Diego.
