Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova won the lone match that was completed Tuesday at the Qatar Open, making it through rain delays to defeat former world No 1 Jelena Jankovic 6-1, 6-4 at the Qatar Open in Doha, Qatar.
Only one of four matches scheduled for Tuesday in the WTA Tour tournament was finished after rain wreaked havoc with the schedule. Two matches were halted in the first set and one in the second set.
But Pavlyuchenkova—an Australian Open quarterfinalist—handled the weather and Jankovic, the former top-ranked player who had to qualify for this event, to reach the second round.
“I’m happy to be one of the first ones done today,” Pavlyuchenkova said. “It’s a nice present for myself, as well.”
Pavlyuchenkova unleashed 23 winners in the match and Jankovic to capitalise on any of her five break-point opportunities.
“I haven’t done so well in the past at this tournament,” Pavlyuchenkova said. “I’ll try to go as far as I can and hopefully I can show some good tennis and have a great result.”
American Lauren Davis prevailed 6-2 in the first set against Roberta Vinci of Italy and the second set was tied 1-1.
Irina Begu was leading Darya Kasatkina 5-3 in the first set when their match was shut down. Caroline Wozniacki and Kiki Bertens were even at two games each in their match.
A full schedule of matches is scheduled for Wednesday.