The pair Raluca Olaru (Romania) – Belgian player Ysaline Bonaventure have defeated Jelena Jankovic (Serbia) – Andrea Petkovic (Germany), 6-4, 6-4, in Melbourne on Wednesday, in the inaugural round of the women doubles event of Australian Open.
Olaru (photo) and Bonaventure won after one hour and 21 minutes and in the second round they will meet the winners between Daria Gavrilova (Russia) / Elina Svitolina (Ukraine) – Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova / Elena Vesnina (Russia), 5th seeded.
Romanian tennis player Monica Niculescu, 40th WTA, was defeated on Wednesdy 6-4, 2-6, 6-4 by Russian tennis player Elisaveta Kulichkova, 109th WTA, in the second round of Australian Open.
For qualifying in the second round, Niculescu will receive about EUR 38,000 and 70 WTA points.
The only Romanian player still in the competition, Alexandra Dulgheru, will face Angelique Kerber on Thursday in the second round.
Other matched on Wednesday:
4-Agnieszka Radwanska – Eugenie Bouchard 6-4 6-2
28-Kristina Mladenovic – Nicole Gibbs 6-1 7-6(4)
Yulia Putintseva – Han Xinyun 6-3 6-1
Margarita Gasparyan – Kurumi Nara 6-4 6-4
10-Carla Suarez Navarro – Maria Sakkari 6-7(5) 6-2 6-2
12-Belinda Bencic – Timea Babos 6-3 6-3
13-Roberta Vinci – Irina Falconi 6-2 6-3
Darya Kasatkina – Ana Konjuh 6-4 6-3
1-Serena Williams – Hsieh Su-Wei 6-1 6-2
Anna-Lena Friedsam – Wang Qiang 6-3 6-4
Lauren Davis – Magdalena Rybarikova 7-6(7) (abandon Rybarikova)
Kateryna Bondarenko – 23-Svetlana Kuznetsova 6-1 7-5
5-Maria Sharapova – Aliaksandra Sasnovich 6-2 6-1.