Garbiñe Muguruza had to wait until 2:10 on Wednesday local time to find out who will be his first rival in the WTA 1,000 in Cincinnati. Finally Muguruza, who goes exempt to the second round as the eighth seed, She will debut in the tournament against the French Caroline Garcia, who reached the final draw from the previous phase, and who beat the American Sloane Stephens in three sets by 7-6 (7), 4-6 and 6-4 after a battle of 2 hours and 33 minutes that ended at dawn in Cincinnati after a day marked by rain.
The match began with both players very solid on serve without giving themselves any break opportunities until, in the eighth game, Garcia broke Stephens’ serve to get 5-3 and serve although the American managed to return the break and save a set ball in the twelfth game to force the tie-break. In the tiebreaker Stephens went 0-4 and had up to four set points, but Garcia was more solid and took the first set 9-7 in the tie-break.
In the second set Garcia put the direct with a new break in the third game. But nevertheless Stephens did not give up so easily and broke the Frenchman’s serve twice in a row to take this second set 6-4 and force the third set. In the final sleeve both tennis players returned to show themselves seamlessly on serve until in the tenth game Garcia broke Stephens’ serve and then took advantage of his serve to close the set and the meeting with the second match ball that he had 6-4 and meet Garbiñe Muguruza in the second round in Cincinnati.
The favorites pass without problems and Giorgi says goodbye
In the rest of the results of the women’s day there were no big surprises. Olympic champion Belinda Bencic beat Marketa Vondrousova again in the Tokyo Games final reissue by 6-3 and 7-5 and Victoria Azarenka did not go through too much trouble to defeat Liudmila Samsonova (6-2 and 6-3).
More problems had to pass the Romanian Simona Halep, who managed to overcome the Polish Magda Linette 6-4, 3-6 and 6-1 in her first victory after being away from the slopes for almost three months. The Czech Karolina Muchova also went to three sets to defeat Johanna Konta (3-6, 7-6 (5) and 6-2), and the Tunisian Ons Jabeur to defeat Kontaveit (6-2, 4-6 and 7-5). For his part Coco Gauff easily beat the Taiwanese Su-Wei Hsieh (6-1 and 6-2) and will be Naomi Osaka’s first rival in Cincinnati.
The big surprise of the day was the defeat of the Italian Camila Giorgi, new WTA 1,000 champion from Canada in Montreal, who fell in straight sets against the American Jessica Pegula by a double 6-2.
Results, table and schedules.