Fourth-seeded Maria Sakkari of Greece, battling to make the season-ending WTA Finals, earned a 6-4, 6-4 victory over Ukraine’s Marta Kostyuk on Tuesday in the second round of the Guadalajara (Mexico) Open Akron.
Sakkari began the tournament in 10th place in the season-long standings, one spot out of the last qualifying position, currently held by Veronika Kudermetova of Russia. Kudermetova, who is seeded eighth in Guadalajara, will oppose Croatia’s Donna Vekic in the second round on Wednesday.
Kostyuk assisted Sakkari’s cause by double-faulting 15 times while hitting seven aces. Sakkari had three aces and four double faults.
In other second-round action, sixth-seeded Caroline Garcia of France rallied past Canada’s Rebecca Marino 6-7 (2), 6-3, 7-6 (5), and seventh-seeded Daria Kasatkina of Russia routed China’s Lin Zhu 6-2, 6-1. Canada’s Bianca Andreescu came from behind to knock out 16th-seeded Petra Kvitova of the Czech Republic 3-6, 6-2, 6-0.
First-round winners on Tuesday were Vekic, 12th-seeded Jelena Ostapenko of Latvia, 13th-seeded Madison Keys of the United States, 14th-seeded Danielle Collins of the United States, Italy’s Elisabetta Cocciaretto and Martina Trevisan, the Czech Republic’s Katerina Siniakova and Marie Bouzkova, Poland’s Magdalena Frech, Russia’s Anna Kalinskaya, Canada’s Eugenie Bouchard and Kazakhstan’s Elena Rybakina.
–Field Level Media