Second-seeded Caroline Garcia was pushed to the limit before emerging with a first-round win on Tuesday in the Baltic Open in Jurmala, Latvia.
The Frenchwoman needed 2 hours, 51 minutes to earn a 6-3, 6-7 (6), 7-6 (6) victory over the Czech Republic's Kristyna Pliskova.
Pliskova staved off three match points while serving at 4-5 in the third set, and she had a match point at 6-5 in the third-set tiebreaker. However, Garcia won that point and the next two to capture the match.
The tournament's third seed, the Czech Republic's Katerina Siniakova, lost 4-6, 6-4, 6-1 to Ukraine's Anhelina Kalinina. Serbia's Nina Stojanovic upset fourth-seeded Aliaksandra Sasnovich of Belarus 4-6, 6-3, 6-4, and Croatia's Jana Fett topped seventh-seeded Tatjana Maria of Germany 6-4, 1-6, 6-4, and the United States' Bernarda Pera routed eighth-seeded Jelena Ostapenko of Latvia 6-2, 6-1.
No. 1 seed Anastasija Sevastova of Latvia beat Russia's Varvara Flink 6-2, 6-1.
Palermo Ladies Open
Top-seeded Kiki Bertens cruised to a 72-minute victory in her opening match at Palmero, Italy, crushing Georgia's Ekaterine Gorgodze 6-0, 6-1.
The only game Gorgodze managed to capture was the first of the second set. Bertens saved the only two break points she faced and converted six of her 16 break opportunities.
Second-seeded Alize Cornet of France rallied past Italy's Martina Trevisan 6-7 (5), 6-4, 6-1, and third-seeded Viktoria Kuzmova of Slovakia topped Italy's Elisabetta Cocciaretto 6-4, 3-6, 6-3. Eighth-seeded Jil Teichmann of Switzerland won, but sixth-seeded Laura Siegemund of Germany and seventh-seeded Sara Sorribes Tormo of Spain lost.
--Field Level Media