Western & Southern Open: Cirstea races into second round

Sorana Cirstea moved into the second round of the Western & Southern Open in style, winning against Russian Ekaterina Alexandrova 6-0, 6-2 at the Linder Tennis Family Center in Cincinnati on Tuesday night.

It took the Romanian less than an hour to get the job done against Alexandrova, winning 91 percent of her first serve points, and punishing her opponent’s second serve for six breaks across the match.

Cirstea, ranked No 31, will play No 8 seed Maria Sakkari next.

Cincinnati WTA 1000, other 64 results (Linder Tennis Family Center, hard, USD 2.788.468, most recent results first):

• Madison Keys vs. Elise Mertens
• Linda Noskova vs. Liudmila Samsonova
• Jennifer Brady vs. Donna Vekic: tuesday
• Cristina Bucsa vs. Belinda Bencic: tuesday
• Danielle Collins (WC) beat Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova: 6-3, 6-1
• Ann Li (Q) beat Magda Linette: 0-6, 7-6 (5), 6-2
• Marketa Vondrousova (10) beat Katerina Siniakova: 7-5, 6-4
• Karolina Muchova beat Beatriz Haddad Maia (12): 6-7 (3), 6-1, 6-4
• Marie Bouzkova beat Irina-Camelia Begu: 6-2, 6-2
• Petra Martic beat Emma Navarro (Q): 6-2, 3-6, 6-3
• Qinwen Zheng beat Aliaksandra Sasnovich (Q): 6-1, 6-4
• Mayar Sherif beat Xiyu Wang (Q): 7-6 (3), 4-6, 7-6 (5)
• Victoria Azarenka beat Barbora Krejcikova (11): 6-3, 7-5
• Varvara Gracheva (LL) beat Caroline Wozniacki (WC): 6-4, 6-4
• Daria Kasatkina (14) beat Peyton Stearns (WC): 6-2, 6-1
• Martina Trevisan (Q) beat Bernarda Pera: 3-6, 6-1, 6-2
• Petra Kvitova (9) beat Anna Blinkova: 7-6 (2), 6-0
• Jelena Ostapenko beat Karolina Pliskova: 1-6, 6-3, 6-4
• Anhelina Kalinina beat Lin Zhu: 6-3, 7-5
• Venus Williams (WC) beat Veronika Kudermetova (16): 6-4, 7-5
• Anastasia Potapova beat Celine Naef (WC): 1-6, 6-4, 7-5
• Jasmine Paolini (Q) beat Marta Kostyuk: 6-2, 6-1
• Sloane Stephens beat Elisabetta Cocciaretto: 7-5, 6-2