Rybakina, Kontaveit march on in St. Petersburg

The first winners of day 3 at the St. Petersburg Open are Elena Rybakina and Anett Kontaveit who both scored easy wins over their opponents.

Rybakina was the first player to step out onto the court and she faced native Gracheva. From the start, Rybakina asserted herself as the dominant player in rallies. It's something she does often simply because of the sheer power she brings to her groundstrokes. She broke her opponent in the first game and never looked back.

Gracheva was having issues countering the sheer power of Rybakina and most of the time found herself struggling to do so. The final score was 6-2 6-1 for Rybakina who looks like a dangerous opponent in these indoor conditions.

In the 2nd match, we saw Anett Kontaveit defeat Sorana Cirstea once more. They played three times last year and each time Kontaveit proved better. Today was another routine win for Kontaveit who looked much sharper in this match than before. Attacking Cirstea is a good tactic as the Romanian does not usually defend well and Kontaveit used that to her advantage.

It was a fairly competitive and close match but the Estonian player won both sets without many issues. She saved 4 of 6 break points she faced and that proved crucial as it was a better ratio than that of Cirstea. She saved only 3 of 7 she faced and that was her undoing.