TWO players retired on day two of the Upper Austria Ladies Linz, seeing six of the eight matches run out as expected and very little surprises bar the two late withdrawals. Top seed Aryna Sabalenka survived an early scare from Jasmine Paolini before consolidating a win, while it was Julia Grabher and Tereza Martincova who finished their matches early, handing second round berths to Sorana Cirstea and Jana Fett.

Sabalenka had a rough time overcoming Paolini, with the Italian getting out to a 4-1 start before the Belarusian got going, eventually coming away with a 6-4 6-4 victory but forced to work for every bit of it. It was Sabalenka’s ability to win off her serve that propelled her across the line, racking up 11aces for four double faults and winning points off 73 per cent of her first serve. While she was not as effective on her second serve, Sabalenka won 54.5 per cent of points overall to proceed to the Round of 16.

“I’ve been working on my service game, and I felt the motion and felt the serve pretty well today,” Sabalenka said. “I’m happy with that. I think the serve helped me a lot today, it was a lot of pressure on her from my serve.”

Paolini’s compatriot Camila Giorgi was much luckier, taken to three sets by Sara Sorribes Tormo and escaping with the 6-3 5-7 6-4 victory. The duo were fairly well matched in this encounter, with the former getting away with a lucky win but was error-ridden in her approach, allowing Sorribes Tormo to capitalise off her service games with nine double faults for one ace. The Spaniard was marginally better off the first serve but not as consistent on the second, which allowed Giorgi the look in she required to bring home the victory.

Stefanie Voegele and Barbora Krejcikova edged past their respective opposition to also join the winners list, with the former overcoming Slovakian Viktoria Kuzmova after a tough first set and the latter fighting back from a tight middle set to control proceedings in the third to defeat Harmony Tan. Meanwhile, Vera Zvonareva downed Marta Kostyuk, and Arantxa Rus defeated Tamara Zidansek to round out the day’s proceedings with a couple more straight sets wins in the books.