London, (Samajweekly) World No. 1 Ashleigh Barty and world No. 13 Karolina Pliskova were stretched in their first round matches before advancing at the Wimbledon Championships here on Tuesday.
While Ashleigh defeated Carla Suárez Navarro 6-1, 6-7(1), 6-1, eighth seed Karolina beat French Open semi-finalist Tamara Zidansek of Slovenia 7-5, 6-4.
Ashleigh, who will lead a strong Australian tennis contingent at the Tokyo Olympics, romped to win the first set but then lost the second in the tie-break as her Spanish opponent won the tie-breaker 7-1.
The Aussie, however, crushed Carla in the final set.
The difference in power game between the two players was stark. While Ashleigh hammered 13 aces, Carla failed to produce a single ace.
Ashleigh won all five of the break-points she got and won 88 per cent on the first serve.
She hit 37 winners against 12 by Carla.
Karolina, who on Monday slipped out of the top 10 in women’s rankings for the first time in five years, took an hour and 17 minutes to get past Tamara.
Karolina slammed 10 aces to three by Tamara and won 82 per cent of points on first serve. She converted all the three break-points she got as against one out of four from Tamara.
Ons Jabeur of Tunisia, the 21st seed who became the first Arab woman to win a WTA tour title when she won the Birmingham Classic this month, thrashed Rebecca Peterson of Sweden, 6-2, 6-1, in just over an hour.
