Garbine Muguruza holds off Dayana Yastremska, Anastasija Sevastova the big casualty

Shahida Jacobs 17 Feb 2019 7:53 PM

Garbine Muguruza flirted with an early exit at the Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships before securing the win over Dayana Yastremska.

Two-time Grand Slam winner Muguruza managed to hold only one service game in the opening set, but she eventually got her act together to win 4-6, 6-3, 6-3 in just over two hours.

🧩 solved

On her seventh match point, @GarbiMuguruza cracks the code to earn her first career win over Dayana Yastremska 4-6, 6-3, 6-3 in the first round at @DDFTennis. pic.twitter.com/iGomnxIJTy

— WTA (@WTA) February 17, 2019

Ukrainian teenager Yastremska won her previous two matches against the Spaniard and looked to be on course for a third victory after the opening set, but Muguruza reeled off three breaks in the second set and two in the decider to wrap up the win.

The seventh seed will face Saisai Zheng next after the Chinese player beat Ajla Tomljanovic from Australia 6-2, 6-4, 7-5.

Tenth seed Anastasija Sevastova was the biggest seed to fall as the Latvia suffered a 6-2, 6-4 defeat at the hands of Su-Wei Hsieh.

Frenchwoman Kristina Mladenovic set up a second-round encounter against top seed Naomi Osaka with a comfortable 6-1, 6-1 victory over Fatma Al Nabhani.

Daria Kasatkina was made to work for her win as the 11th seed from Russia battled to a 6-3, 3-6, 6-4 win over Magdalena Frech.