No. 5 seed Maria Sakkari of Greece outlasted Qinwen Zheng of China 6-2, 3-6, 6-3 in a first-round match Tuesday at the Qatar TotalEnergies Open in Doha.
Sakkari fired seven aces and benefited from four double faults from her opponent to win the match in 2 hours and 9 minutes.
Also on Tuesday, sixth-seeded Daria Kasatkina of Russia recorded a 7-6 (5), 6-2 victory over Canadian Rebecca Marino. Seventh-seeded Belinda Bencic of Switzerland breezed to a 6-0, 6-1 win over Viktoriya Tomova of Bulgaria in 58 minutes.
Unseeded Americans Danielle Collins and Sofia Kenin, Petra Kvitova of the Czech Republic, Jelena Ostapenko of Latvia, Beatriz Haddad Maia of Brazil and Ekaterina Alexandrova of Russia each won their respective first-round matches in straight sets.
World No. 1 Iga Swiatek of Poland, No. 4 Jessica Pegula, No. 5 Caroline Garcia of France and No. 6 Coco Gauff received byes into the second round of this WTA 500 event. They will begin play on Wednesday.
–Field Level Media