American wildcard Sofia Kenin defeated Croat Donna Vekic, the No 16 seed, 7-5, 6-3 to reach the second round of the Dubai Open at The Aviation Club Tennis Centre.
Kenin, ranked No 73, will face the winner of the match between qualifier Katerina Siniakova and Ukrainian Marta Kostyuk next.
Dubai WTA 1000, other first-round results (The Aviation Club Tennis Centre, hard, USD 3.664.963, most recent results first):
- Victoria Azarenka vs. Anhelina Kalinina
- Beatriz Haddad Maia vs. Anastasia Potapova
- Elina Avanesyan vs. Mirra Andreeva
- Ons Jabeur vs. Peyton Stearns
- Eva Lys vs. Irina-Camelia Begu
- Katerina Siniakova vs. Marta Kostyuk
- Moyuka Uchijima vs. Jelena Ostapenko
- Daria Kasatkina vs. Sorana Cirstea
- McCartney Kessler vs. Amanda Anisimova
- Diana Shnaider vs. Magdalena Frech
- Rebecca Sramkova vs. Clara Tauson
- Ekaterina Alexandrova vs. Veronika Kudermetova
- Maria Sakkari vs. Emma Raducanu
- Elina Svitolina vs. Anna Kalinskaya
- Suzan Lamens vs. Karolina Muchova
- Marketa Vondrousova vs. Caroline Garcia
- Belinda Bencic vs. Aoi Ito
- Liudmila Samsonova vs. Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova
- Linda Noskova vs. Yulia Putintseva: sunday
- Magda Linette vs. Dayana Yastremska: sunday
- Elise Mertens beat Leylah Fernandez: 6-2, 6-2
- Paula Badosa (9) beat Lulu Sun: 6-3, 6-4
- Alycia Parks (Q) beat Xinyu Wang: 6-3, 6-3
