Svetlana Kuznetsova lost to Lauren Davis in qualifying, but was fortunate to enter the main draw as a lucky loser, replacing Nadia Petrova who withdrew with a left leg injury. However, the Grand Slam champion again bumped into Lauren Davis, right away in the first round, and repeated the loss to the American, 3-6 7-5 7-5.
Venus Williams was making her comeback from a lower back injury, playing her first match since the first round of Roland Garros, but Kirsten Flipkens recovered from suffering a bagel in the first set and beat the big champion 0-6 6-4 6-2.
Eleventh seed Maria Kirilenko, who is blogging from Toronto for the WTA website, advanced to the second round of the Rogers Cup with a 6-2 6-1 victory over Petra Martic. Serbian stars Ana Ivanovic and Jelena Jankovic both won their first-round matches on Tuesday, by beating Su-Wei Hsieh 6-1 6-2 and Anna Tatishvili 7-6(6) 4-6 6-3 respectively.
Last week’s titlist at the Citi Open Magdalena Rybarikova beat Alexandra Dulgheru 6-4 6-3 in the first round, while Dominika Cibulkova, who followed her Stanford triumph with a first-round loss in Carlsbad last week, has already won two matches at the Rogers Cup – first against Jana Cepelova and today against eight seed Angelique Kerber 6(0)-7 6-2 7-5. (photo: © Neal Trousdale)
