The top-seeded Victoria Azarenka (Belarus) dropped out in the first round of the hard court tennis tournament WTA 250 Hong Kong Tennis Open with a prize pool of 259,303 USD.
Victoria Azarenka withdrew due to a left leg injury in her match against Leylah Annie Fernandez (Canada) with a score of 1-1 (6:2, 3:6). The Belarusian tennis player took a 3:0 lead in the first set and won it convincingly by 6:2, but the injury affected her performance in the second set and after two breaks, she lost by 3:6 to her opponent.
Leylah Fernandez qualified for the second round, where she will meet 16-year-old Russian player Mirra Andreeva, who overcame Dayana Yastremska (Ukraine) by 2-0 (6:4, 6:3) in an hour and 24 minutes of play.
Katerina Siniakova (Czech Republic) also continued to advance, who eliminated Wang Xiyu (China) by 2-0 (6:4, 7:6) and will face Kamilla Rakhimova (Russia), who defeated the 8th-seeded Varvara Gracheva (France) by 2-0 (6:3, 6:2).
The 6th-seeded Martina Trevisan (Italy) defeated Cristina Bucsa (Spain) by 2-0 (7:5, 6:2) and also qualified for the second round, as well as the 5th-seeded Anna Blinkova (Russia), who defeated Yulia Putintseva (Kazakhstan) by 2-0 (6:4, 2:6, 5:1) and retiring of the of Kazakhstani player.
Another Russian player, Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova, eliminated Jana Fett (Croatia) after 2-0 (6-0, 6-0) in just 50 minutes of play.
Linda Fruhvirtova (Czech Republic) eliminated the 7th-seeded Peyton Stearns (USA) after 2-1 (3:6, 6:4, 6:4) comeback in a match that lasted two hours and 25 minutes.
