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Twice Australian Open champion Azarenka found herself in trouble
trailing 5-1 but she summoned up her fighting spirit to save
five set points before edging a tense tiebreaker.
The Belarusian secured an early break in the second set, but
surrendered the advantage before winning another tiebreaker
against her Ukrainian opponent to wrap up victory on her fifth
match point and set up a meeting with China's Zheng Qinwen.
"When you talk about first matches that are never easy this one
was definitely at the top of the list," Azarenka said. "I played
an opponent who played really, really well today.
"She already had two matches under her belt so she had a bit of
momentum, especially at the beginning of the match.
WTA Newcomer of the Year in 2022, Zheng saved a match point to
battle past Anett Kontaveit 6-1 4-6 7-6(7), while former French
Open runner-up Marketa Vondrousova upset eighth seed Ekaterina
Alexandrova 4-6 6-3 6-2.
Former French Open champion Jelena Ostapenko later defeated
former world number one Karolina Pliskova 6-1 6-3 to reach the
second round.
RADUCANU OFF TO WINNING START
Returning to action following a wrist injury, former U.S. Open
champion Emma Raducanu dropped the first set in a rain-hit clash
with Linda Fruhvirtova in her Auckland Classic WTA 250 opener
before beating the Czech teenager 4-6 6-4 6-2.
"What a battle," Raducanu said of the clash with her 17-year-old
opponent. "Linda is such a great young player and it was a
different dynamic for me, because normally I am the younger
one."
Top-seeded American Coco Gauff made short work of Tatjana Maria,
beating the Wimbledon semi-finalist 6-4 6-1 to snap a five-match
losing streak.
Former U.S. Open champion Sloane Stephens' match against Rebeka
Masarova was suspended due to showers before being moved to
Wednesday.
(Reporting by Shrivathsa Sridhar in Bengaluru, editing by Ed
Osmond and Christian Radnedge)
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