Top seeds of Open 6e Sens Métropole de Lyon came to action on Tuesday's afternoon, as Caroline Garcia and Shuai Zhang earned the advance to second round after winning their matches in straight sets.
Zhang started her title defence quest with a dominant win against Madison Brengle. The Chinese just 62 minutes to cross the line with a score 6-3 6-2, losing just one own service game on the road and converting 4 out of 10 created breakpoint chances.
Garcia, who was facing Tereza Martincova, needed to work on her victory, as her opponent from Czech Republic made difficult conditions for local favorite. World's number 5 started the match well with an early break, but lost her advantage in 9th game and needed to gain another break in 10th game to close the set. Second set started on Martincova's favour, as the Czech was the first to gain a break advantage in 3rd game. Garcia leveled after a while, but her opponent showed a great spirit, fought till the end and even saved 2 matchpoints in 10th game within own serve. Second set was settled in a tie-break, won by Garcia 7-4.
Alycia Parks played an really interesting match against Julia Grabner. 22 years-old player from USA who showed up well in the second half of last season was a strong pre-match favorite against the Austrian, with an average odd 1.18. The match was a great show, as Grabner was an equal opponent for Parks in every set, making it to distance, with an eventual of the American 6-3 5-7 6-4.
