The second day of main draw action at the 2018 Volvo Car Open saw the conclusion of the first round matches and the first two matches from the second round. After two days, the seeds have gone a perfect ten for ten! For a preview of Wednesday’s order of play in Charleston, check out a sweeping preview of the matches HERE. Read on for seven stories from Tuesday in Charleston.
Barty’s 1st singles win in Charleston
The first winner of Tuesday’s order of play was Ash Barty who needed just 68 minutes to beat Sofia Kenin, 6-3 6-2. I’d written in my preview about being intrigued about Barty on clay. Her comments in press posted by the WTA Insider Twitter account are a pretty firm indication of how Ash feels about this surface!
Ahn knocks out Stosur
Kristie Ahn scored the fifth top 100 win of her 2018 season with a 6-2 6-4 victory over former Charleston champ, Sam Stosur. I got in from work near the end of this match. Ahn seemed to be tightening up at the end with the finish line in sight. Stosur’s forehand was lacklustre and she ended the match with four errors. Not a good day for Sam. I’ll never count her out though for a deep run at Roland Garros!
Vesnina maintains 100% record over Brengle
Elena Vesnina needed three sets to get past Madison Brengle, 6-3 2-6 6-2. Brengle was as aggressive as i’ve ever seen her play in the second set as she overpowered Vesnina for a time. The Russian player stepped it up again in the decider as Brengle made an avalanche of errors towards the end. Highlight of the match – when Madison put her sunglasses on in the decider 😎😂 . I don’t think she won any games with them on!
Errani beats Bouchard
In a match that was closer than the scoreline suggested, Sara Errani beat Eugenie Bouchard, 6-4 6-4. Bouchard didn’t play a bad match at all. She crumbled at 4-4 in the second set having come close to breaking Errani’s serve in the game before. Bouchard’s lack of matches and confidence certainly showed and I was pleased to read from her press conference that she is intending to play smaller tournaments and get matches under her belt.
Bouchard wasn’t at all convincing at the net and lacked patience in the final two games with Errani’s top spin forehand causing havoc. Errani’s stats of 23 winners to just 11 unforced errors were very impressive and she dropped her serve just twice.
While I was sleeping…
The defending champion, Daria Kasatkina joined the number one seed, Caroline Garcia into the third round. In Tuesday’s night match, Kasatkina needed three sets to beat Christina McHale, 6-3 3-6 6-2.
Watch this
The Volvo Car Open do the best player features. I’m sad that we won’t have any Petko-JJ videos this year but this still made me laugh!
Wednesday’s Preview
A sweeping preview of Wednesday’s second round matches including Osaka vs. Siegemund and Gavrilova vs. Giorgi is up on the blog.
Moo's Tennis Blog 
Please let that match be an indication of Garcia’s clay court season, because she was red hot and firing on all cylinders!
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I was relatively impressed with how Barty performed yesterday, but Kenin really didn’t play a clean or clever match. Barty’s backhand slice looks like it could serve her pretty well on this surface, and she has the game to put away anything bouncing high or dropping short. There were signs of rustiness and a number of poor errors from her, but it’s her movement that I think could be her undoing and I was disappointed to see how poor a job Kenin did of moving her around the court.
I havent seen nearly enough of Maria to know if she has the game to exploit that, and from the few minutes I saw of her match against Davis I was struck by how terribly Davis was playing more than anything else. But I’ll be tuning in with interest to see how it plays out.
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I am a big fan of Barty’s game and she is fast becoming a favourite of mine. Her serve is fantastic and the second serve has to be up there as one of the best on the WTA tour.
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Monterrey
I was surprised to see Collins playing this week after deep runs in IW and Miami, but this is the last hard court event unless she flies all the way to China. Collins had too much power for Duque-Marino (6-1,6-3). I was also surprised that Monterrey is a hard court tournament.
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Rain last night in Monterrey?
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