Western & Southern Open: Vekic grits out win over Brady

Croat Donna Vekic won against American Jennifer Brady 7-6 (5), 7-5 to reach the second round of the Western & Southern Open at the Linder Tennis Family Center in Cincinnati on Tuesday night.

It was a match of razor thin margins, with little to separate the two statistically across their two hours on court. As is the case in tennis, however, the big points matter most, and those are the ones that Vekic won, eking out a tight victory to continue her campaign in Cincinnati.

Vekic, ranked No 22, will play Belarusian Victoria Azarenka next.

Cincinnati WTA 1000, other round of 64 results (Linder Tennis Family Center, hard, USD 2.788.468, most recent results first):

• Madison Keys vs. Elise Mertens
• Linda Noskova vs. Liudmila Samsonova
• Sorana Cirstea beat Ekaterina Alexandrova: 6-0, 6-2
• Cristina Bucsa vs. Belinda Bencic: tuesday
• Danielle Collins (WC) beat Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova: 6-3, 6-1
• Ann Li (Q) beat Magda Linette: 0-6, 7-6 (5), 6-2
• Marketa Vondrousova (10) beat Katerina Siniakova: 7-5, 6-4
• Karolina Muchova beat Beatriz Haddad Maia (12): 6-7 (3), 6-1, 6-4
• Marie Bouzkova beat Irina-Camelia Begu: 6-2, 6-2
• Petra Martic beat Emma Navarro (Q): 6-2, 3-6, 6-3
• Qinwen Zheng beat Aliaksandra Sasnovich (Q): 6-1, 6-4
• Mayar Sherif beat Xiyu Wang (Q): 7-6 (3), 4-6, 7-6 (5)
• Victoria Azarenka beat Barbora Krejcikova (11): 6-3, 7-5
• Varvara Gracheva (LL) beat Caroline Wozniacki (WC): 6-4, 6-4
• Daria Kasatkina (14) beat Peyton Stearns (WC): 6-2, 6-1
• Martina Trevisan (Q) beat Bernarda Pera: 3-6, 6-1, 6-2
• Petra Kvitova (9) beat Anna Blinkova: 7-6 (2), 6-0
• Jelena Ostapenko beat Karolina Pliskova: 1-6, 6-3, 6-4
• Anhelina Kalinina beat Lin Zhu: 6-3, 7-5
• Venus Williams (WC) beat Veronika Kudermetova (16): 6-4, 7-5
• Anastasia Potapova beat Celine Naef (WC): 1-6, 6-4, 7-5
• Jasmine Paolini (Q) beat Marta Kostyuk: 6-2, 6-1
• Sloane Stephens beat Elisabetta Cocciaretto: 7-5, 6-2