Victoria Azarenka and Karolína Plíšková, former world number ones, overcame a long delay due to rain to progress to the second round after a wet opening day at the Canadian Open in Montreal on Monday. In the first match on the main court, Azarenka's match against Poland's Magda Linette was interrupted twice before the Belarusian, ranked 16th, won 6-3, 6-0 in a match that lasted nearly five hours.
Azarenka was undeterred by the rain, leading 5-2 in the first set before closing it out after breaking her opponent's serve right before the second interruption. After a three-hour break, Azarenka did not allow another stoppage to affect her. She won 24 out of 31 points in the second set and broke Linette's serve three times. Azarenka will now face the winner between American Sloane Stephens and Ukrainian Anhelina Kalinina.
Plíšková's performance fluctuated in the second set amidst the rain delays; she lost the tiebreak but rallied to defeat Chinese player Zhu Lin 6-3, 6-7, 6-2, achieving her second win in the last six tournaments since April in Stuttgart. Plíšková, who parted ways with coach Sasha Bajin two weeks ago, easily took the opening set and seemed poised for a straight-sets victory before Zhu saved two match points, leading to a rain delay with the score tied at 8-8.
Upon resuming play, Zhu fought back and won two points to take the tiebreak 10-8. However, the 31-year-old Czech quickly regained her focus in the deciding set, applying pressure on Zhu and breaking her serve three times to advance to the second round, where she will face Poland’s Iga Swiatek, the world number one and defending US Open champion.
