Vekic cruises, Sakkari exits in Mexico

Acapulco, February 26: Donna Vekic cruised through her Mexican Open first-round clash, but fellow seed Maria Sakkari fell on Monday.

Vekic needed just over an hour to brush past Misaki Doi 6-0, 6-3 in her opener at the WTA International event in Acapulco.

The Croatian third seed was thrashed in the previous clash between the pair in 2017, but broke five times in a convincing win in their second meeting.

Vekic was one of two seeds in action and the other, Sakkari, made a first-round exit at the hands of Monica Puig.

.@DonnaVekic withstands the Doi overhead to earn the shot of the day at @AbiertoTelcel pic.twitter.com/U1SLsYRk7w

— WTA (@WTA) February 26, 2019

Puig finished strongly to get past the Greek sixth seed 7-5 4-6 6-0 in two hours, 34 minutes.

In a battle between two qualifiers, Beatriz Haddad Maia was too good for Irina Bara 6-0 6-2.

Wang Yafan breezed past Marie Bouzkova 6-2 6-2 and Katie Boulter beat Conny Perrin 6-4 7-5.

At the Oracle Challenger Series event at Indian Wells, former world number five and defending champion Sara Errani fell to a 6-3 5-7 6-2 loss to Allie Kiick.

There were wins for the likes of Timea Bacsinszky, Yanina Wickmayer and Jennifer Brady.