INDIAN WELLS, California — Second-seeded Aryna Sabalenka of Belarus needed only 65 minutes to win her opening match at the BNP Paribas Open, routing Russia’s Evgeniya Rodina 6-2, 6-0 in the second round at Indian Wells, Calif.
Sabalenka improved her 2023 record to 14-1. She won the Australian Open after also capturing a warm-up event in Adelaide, Australia, and she fell in the quarterfinals of her most recent event, at Dubai, United Arab Emirates.
Rodina offered little in the way of a challenge, serving no aces and dropping all four of her break-point opportunities. Sabalenka won 80 percent of her first-serve points.
Sabalenka said postmatch, “It was (a) tricky game, I would say. I didn’t expect her (to) play that slow. I was struggling a little bit with adjusting for the balls, because it was super slow.
“Super happy with this win. Happy to win this match in two sets without struggling too much.”
Next up for Sabalenka is a match against Ukraine’s Lesia Tsurenko, who defeated 29th-seeded Donna Vekic of Croatia 2-6, 6-2, 6-2.
Sixth-seeded Coco Gauff of the United States also strolled through her second-round match, beating Spain’s Cristina Bucsa 6-2, 6-4. Gauff lost her serve just once and broke Busca’s serve on four of her five chances.
In an all-Swiss matchup, Jil Teichmann upset Belinda Bencic 3-6, 6-3, 6-3. China’s Xinyu Wang knocked out 18th-seeded Ekaterina Alexandrova of Russia 6-2, 6-3. Sweden’s Rebecca Peterson led 3-0 when 22nd-seeded Shuai Zhang of China retired.
Other second-round winners included third-seeded Jessica Pegula of the United States, seventh-seeded Maria Sakkari of Greece, 11th-seeded Veronika Kudermetova of Russia, 24th-seeded Jelena Ostapenko of Latvia, 26th-seeded Anastasia Potapova of Russia and 27th-seeded Anhelina Kalinina of Ukraine.
Four players from the Czech Republic moved on: 15th-seeded Petra Kvitova, 16th-seeded Barbora Krejcikova, 17th-seeded Karolina Pliskova and Linda Noskova.
