Canadian Open: Azarenka comes out firing after rain delay, breaks Halep’s record

Belarusian Victoria Azarenka, the No 16 seed, won against Pole Magda Linette 6-3, 6-0 to advance to the second round of the Canadian Open at Stade IGA in Montreal on Monday.

Despite only spending an hour and 12 minutes on court, the match took triple that time to be completed thanks to the Montreal rain. Azarenka had just won the first set 6-3 before the pair were called off court, with a delay of several hours ensuing.

However, when the match was finally reinstated, Azarenka came out on a mission. The Belarusian lost no games following the rain delay, blasting through the second set 6-0 and winning 24 of 31 points, including all 10 behind her first serve.

With the victory, the former world No 1 overtakes Simona Halep for the most WTA 1000 level wins, with 187 to her name now.

Azarenka, ranked No 19, will next face American Sloane Stephens, who beat Ukrainian Anhelina Kalinina in another first round encounter.

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Tennis Majors

Montreal WTA 1000, other first round matches (Stade IGA, hard, USD 2,788,468):

• Marie Bouzkova beat Kayla Day (Q): 7-6 (1), 6-3
• Jasmine Paolini beat Donna Vekic: 7-6 (3), 6-2
• Karolina Pliskova beat Lin Zhu: 6-3, 6-7 (8), 6-2
• Alycia Parks vs. Lauren Davis
• Katie Boulter vs. Rebecca Marino
• Petra Martic vs. Lesia Tsurenko
• Marta Kostyuk vs. Qinwen Zheng
• Liudmila Samsonova vs. Katerina Siniakova
• Camila Giorgi vs. Bianca Andreescu
• Anna Blinkova vs. Shuai Zhang
• Caroline Wozniacki vs. Kimberly Birrell
• Marketa Vondrousova vs. Mayar Sherif
• Bernarda Pera vs. Yulia Putintseva
• Danielle Collins vs. Elina Svitolina
• Leylah Fernandez vs. Peyton Stearns
• Beatriz Haddad Maia vs. Paula Badosa
• Anastasia Potapova vs. Karolina Muchova
• Elise Mertens vs. Daria Kasatkina
• Venus Williams vs. Madison Keys
• Sloane Stephens vs. Anhelina Kalinina
• Jennifer Brady vs. Jelena Ostapenko
• Lucia Bronzetti vs. Belinda Bencic
• Varvara Gracheva vs. Sorana Cirstea