Jelena Ostapenko (Latvia) overcame the first round of the Australian Open after defeating Kimberly Birrell (Australia) by 2-0 (7:6, 6:1) in 1:42 hours of play. The Latvian tennis player is unstoppable since the beginning of the season after reaching the quarter-finals at the WTA 500 Brisbane International and winning the title at the WTA 500 Adelaide International.
In the first round of the Australia Open, Jelena Ostapenko suffered problems only in the first set, which she started perfectly and leading by 3:0, but then allowed her opponent to equalize to 5:5 and moved it into a tiebreak. However, the Latvian tennis player succeeded to win the tiebreak by 7-5 and the set. The second set was under her total dominance after breaking in the first and third game to lead by 4:0, which proved to be enough to close the set at 6:1.
In the next round, the 11th-seeded Jelena Ostapenko will face the winner between Petra Martic (Croatia) and Ajla Tomljanovic (Australia).
Katie Boulter (Great Britain) also advanced to the second round of the Grand Slam tournament after defeating Yue Yuan (China) by 2-0 (7:5, 7:6), where will face 12th-seeded Qinwen Zheng (China), who eliminated Ashlyn Krueger (Germany) after 2-1 (3:6, 6:2, 6:3).
Yafan Wang (China) eliminated Sorana Cirstea (Romania) after 2-1 (0:6, 7:5, 6:2), while Anna Blinkova (Russia) defeated Cristina Bucsa (Spain) by 2-0 (6:2, 6:4) and Clara Burel (France) achieved a straight-set victory versus Aleksandra Krunic (Serbia) by 2-0 (6:4, 6:1).
Danish talent Clara Tauson qualified for the second round of the tournament after defeating Greet Minnen (Belgium) by 2-0 (7:5, 7:5) and Oceane Dodin (France) eliminated Zhu Lin (China) after 2-0 (6:4, 6:3).
