First day of 2023 Australian Open started with a few top WTA names to fight in their inaugural grand slam matches of the year. The first one who made her job done was Jessica Pegula. The world #3 gave absolutely no chance for Jaqueline Cristian. Romanian player managed to win just one game in second set after. Pegula faced a little trouble only after winning the first set with bagel, defending 3 breakpoints in the 7th game of the match which lasted an hour without one minute. The highest ranked American who proved being ready for a title contender role will face Aliaksandra Sasnovich in second round. The Belarusian ended up the maiden grand slam run of Brenda Fruhvirtova, who gained her main draw spot in qualies, 7-5 6-2.
Cori Gauff took a solid revenge on Katerina Siniakova for the loss in their previous meeting during BJK Cup Finals in November last year. The seed #7 showed dominant performance in opening set which lasted just 23 minutes, ended with score 6-1. Second one was more tight, as it was Czech player who broke first. Gauff showed the mature raising up her game again and closing the match with 4 games won in a row. She will face Emma Raducanu in a top clash of R2 on Wednesday. US Open 2021 champion dispelled doubts about being fit enough to compete in Melbourne after her injury sustained in Auckland two weeks ago with confident straight set wins against Tamara Korpatsch. Raducanu managed to prevail despite losing the break advantage twice in the opening set and delivering the win with solid performance, 6-3 6-2.
Maria Sakkari gave away just two games for Yue Yuan, winning her opening match 6-1 6-4 despite being a break down in second set. The was no surprise in the duel between Jelena Ostapenko and Dayana Yastremska as well. Latvian's seed won 6-4 6-2. Sofia Kenin started her big names clash against Victoria Azarenka pretty well with an early break advantage, but despite showing solid performance, the Australian Open 2020 champion did not upset Belarusian who won 6-4 7-6.
