San Jose round-up: Strong starts for Svitolina and Sabalenka

Top seed Elina Svitolina maintained her dominance over Daria Kasatkina on Wednesday in San Jose, improving to 5-0 against the Russian wild card by winning their second-round encounter, 6-3, 6-1.

Taking the court for the first time since reaching her first major semifinal at Wimbledon, Svitolina won 58 percent of her return points to break Kasatkina five times in the 65-minute victory. She’ll look to clean up her serve, having committed six double faults, when she takes on last year’s finalist Maria Sakkari in the quarterfinals. The No. 7 seed overcame qualifier Mayo Hibi, 4-6, 6-4, 6-2.

(AP Images)

Second seed Aryna Sabalenka had no problem in her opener against wild card CoCo Vandeweghe, avenging her 2017 Fed Cup Final defeat to the American with a 6-3, 6-3 win. Sabalenka, who began the 2019 season by triumphing in Shenzhen, will be hoping to recapture the form that emerged last summer in New Haven, where she picked up her first WTA singles crown to jump start her eventual rise into the Top 10 of the WTA rankings.

Vandeweghe was playing her first WTA tournament this year after being sidelined with ankle and foot injuries.