WTA Tour: Top seeds Iga Swiatek and Jessica Pegula ease into third round of Madrid Open

Top seed Iga Swiatek and third seed Jessica Pegula both made it safely through to the third round of the Madrid Open clay-court event on Friday.

World number one Iga Swiatek eased into the third round of the Madrid Open after comfortably beating Julia Grabher in straight sets.

The top seed dropped only five games to win 6-3 6-2 on her return to Madrid, with her last appearance in the tournament coming in 2021 after missing last year due to a shoulder injury.

After winning four matches last week on the indoor clay at the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix, Swiatek is now on a five-match winning streak on clay.

The win set up a meeting with Bernarda Pera in the next round following her 6-1 6-3 victory over Germany's Tatjana Maria.

Elsewhere Anna Kalinskaya upset Elena Rybakina as she claimed a hard-fought 7-5 4-6 6-2 win over the Wimbledon champion.

Seeded seventh in the tournament, Rybakina has won this year's Indian Wells title and reached the Miami Open final, but Kalinskaya was able to take the third set to reach the next round where she will face Petra Martic.

Number three seed Jessica Pegula also opened her campaign with a win, securing a 7-6 (5) 6-3 victory against Polish qualifier Magdalena Frech.

Former World No 1 Victoria Azarenka was beaten 6-2,7-5(5) by 22-year-old American Alycia Parks, who managed to snap a two-month-long main-draw losing streak in the process.

Parks claimed 10 consecutive victories to win back-to-back WTA tournaments in December but since then has been endured a long barren spell.

"I think it was a little bit of expectations and a lot of little stuff thrown at me," Parks told WTA Insider. "So I had to go back to how I was winning these matches. I had to literally sit down with my dad and be like 'What's happening? Why is this happening?' He said, 'You changed your routine.' So I had to go back to that. I'm back on track now.

"My family is my own team. I think that's kind of when I got off track, allowing other people in my tennis to kind of direct me off track."

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