(Reuters) -Wimbledon champion Elena Rybakina remained in contention for a WTA Finals spot with a 7-6(5) 6-2 win over Karolina Pliskova in the first round of the Guadalajara Open on Tuesday.
Pliskova served for the opening set at 5-3 but the Czech was unable to finish the job as Rybakina battled back to force a tiebreak.
Pliskova issued one of her six double faults in the match on set point in the tibreaker and Rybakina cruised from there, taking the second set behind her powerful groundstrokes and booming serve.
Next up for Rybakina is a meeting with American Jessica Pegula, who won their only previous meeting at the Miami Open this year.
The WTA Finals will be contested by the game’s top eight players, with Iga Swiatek, Ons Jabeur and Pegula having locked up the first three spots.
Rybakina can book her spot by winning the title in Mexico. The Finals kick off on Oct. 31 in Fort Worth, Texas.
Canadian Bianca Andreescu rallied to beat Petra Kvitova 3-6 6-2 6-0 and will meet either Rybakina or Pegula in the third round.
After a strong start, Kvitova’s serve began to betray her and she issued eight double faults and was broken for an eighth time in the final game of the contest to end her season.
Maria Sakkari also progressed to the third round on Tuesday, ending a three-match losing run with a 6-4 6-4 victory over Ukraine’s Marta Kostyuk.
The pair traded two breaks apiece before the Greek won three straight games to take the opening set.
Fourth seed Sakkari then broke again to take a 5-4 lead in the second set, saving three break points in the following game and holding serve to close out the win.
Sakkari, who received a bye in the first round, will next play the winner of the match between Danielle Collins and Magdalena Frech.
Earlier in the day, former Wimbledon finalist Eugenie Bouchard beat American qualifier Kayla Day 7-5 6-3 to set up a second round clash with 12th seed Jelena Ostapenko.
The victory by the Canadian wildcard was her first at a WTA 1000 level event since Dubai in 2019. The 28-year-old, whose career has been plagued by injury, was forced to retire midway through her match at the Transylvania Open last week with a hip injury.
Americans Madison Keys and Danielle Collins, who are also in the running for the WTA finals, both moved on to the second round on Tuesday, along with Russia’s Anna Kalinskaya, Croatia’s Donna Vekic, Italy’s Martina Trevisan and Czech Marie Bouzkova.
(Reporting by Rory Carroll in Los Angeles, additional reporting by Aadi Nair in Bengaluru; Editing by Shri Navaratnam, Peter Rutherford)
