Third seed Jessica Pegula, Coco Gauff and Danielle Collins all reached the second round of the Australian Open on Monday with Pegual is striking form in a 6-0, 6-1 win over Romanian Jaqueline Cristian.
No. 7 seed Gauff overcame a second-set fightback from Katerina Siniakova to emerge 6-1, 6-4 and 2022 runner-up Collins defeated Anna Kalinskaya 7-5, 5-7, 6-4.
“Today is just one of those days everything was working,” Pegula said.
“Always feels good when you win a match like that. I think when those days come you just kind of take it and don’t complain and don’t critique. You kind of just move on to the next one.”
“I was not expecting to open the tournament on Rod Laver,” Gauff said.
“I’m super-honoured that the tournament chose me and Katerina. I’m really pleased with myself. Katerina’s a fighter, I knew she was going to fight for every point. I just stayed strong mentally.”
Gauff will play former US Open champion Emma Raducanu after the Brit beat Tamara Korpatsch of Germany 6-3, 6-2.
Bianca Andreescu opened her campaign after missing last year’s event, with a straight sets win over Czech Marie Bouzkova 6-2,6-4.
Sefanos Tsitsipas overcame a slow start to his Monte Carlo Masters title defence with the…
Matteo Berrettini staged a comeback to deny Alexander Zverev an opening season win on clay, with the…
Holger Rune failed to finish as the 2023 finalist was hit by illness which forced…
Daniil Medvedev began the fight-back into his accustomed elite ATP status with a struggling 7-5,…
Former champion Stan Wawrinka let a third-set lead slip as the three-time Grand Slam winner…
Novak Djokovic admitted on Sunday that he is carrying muted expectations as the Monte Carlo…