Wimbledon champion Elena Rybakina kept her hopes of making the WTA Finals alive 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 while leading 5-3 but was unable to finish the job as the Kazakhstani battled back to force a first set tiebreak.
The Czech issued one of her six double faults of the match on set point in the breaker and Rybakina cruised in the second set behind her powerful groundstrokes and booming serve.
Next up for Rybakina is a meeting with American Jessica Pegula, who came out on the winning side of their only previous meeting at the Miami Open this year.
The WTA Finals are contested by the game’s top eight players and the 23-year-old Rybakina can book a spot there by winning the title in Mexico. The Finals kick off on Oct. 31 in Fort Worth, Texas.
Former Wimbledon finalist Eugenie Bouchard beat American qualifier Kayla Day 7-5 6-3 to set up a second round clash with 12th-seeded Jelena Ostapenko.
The victory by the Canadian wild card was her first at a WTA 1000 level event since Dubai in 2019.
The win comes as a relief after the 28-year-old Bouchard, whose career has been plagued with injuries, was forced to retire midway through her match at the Transylvania Open last week with a hip injury.
Americans Madison Keys and Danielle Collins, Russia’s Anna Kalinskaya, Croatia’s Donna Vekic, Italy’s Martina Trevisan and Czeck Marie Bouzkova all advanced to the second round in straight sets on Tuesday.