Miami, March 19 Sofia Kenin won a first-round clash between Grand Slam champions at the Miami Open to set up a second-round showdown against another Grand Slam champion Coco Gauff.
Kenin, the 2020 Australian Open champion from the United States, defeated new mom and two-time Wimbledon champion Petra Kvitova of the Czech Republic 6-4, 7-5 at the WTA 1000 hard-court event.
Kenin took 1 hour and 25 minutes to level her head-to-head with former Miami champion Kvitova at 2-2. One of Kvitova's wins came here in 2018, but Kenin got the job done this time around in her home state of Florida.
Former World No. 2 Kvitova, who defeated Elena Rybakina to win the Miami Open title just two years ago, gave birth to son Petr last July. Kvitova made her celebrated return to tour action less than a month ago, WTA reports.
The Czech is still winless in her three appearances on court since her maternity leave ended. She fell to Jodie Burrage in the first round of Austin and to Varvara Gracheva in her Indian Wells opener.
Former World No. 4 Kenin will now face current World No. 3 Gauff in an all-American second-round encounter. Kenin and Gauff have split their four career meetings on the WTA Tour.
In another match, former Miami Open finalist Naomi Osaka survived a first-round scare from Ukrainian qualifier Yuliia Starodubtseva, coming from a set and a break down to advance 3-6, 6-4, 6-3 in 2 hours and 28 minutes.
Osaka, the 2022 runner-up to Iga Swiatek, had not won a match since reaching the third round of the Australian Open in January, where she retired trailing Belinda Bencic by a set due to an abdominal injury.
Next up is No. 24 seed Liudmila Samsonova, with whom she split two meetings last year.
Disclaimer: This post has been auto-published from an agency feed without any modifications to the text and has not been reviewed by an editor