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No.6 seed Garbiñe Muguruza impressively found her form to move past Belinda Bencic in the first round of the Toray Pan Pacific Open 6-2 6-4. In an opening day characterized by exhausting battles, Dominika Cibulkova beat Nao Hibino 6-1 5-7 6-3 and set up a clash with newly-crowned US Open champion Naomi Osaka in the second-round.
Making her fifth consecutive main draw appearance at Toray Pan Pacific Open, Muguruza sealed her 24th WTA win this season in her bid to reach at least the third semifinal here as she moved to this stage in 2014 and 2017, losing to Wozniacki on both occasions.
The only Spaniard in the field this week avenged her defeat to Bencic in their 2015 quarterfinal here. On that day the Swiss prevailed, eventually falling to
A.Radwanska in the final. Muguruza, who could become the second Spanish woman to reach the final here after Sanchez Vicario's runner-up showings in 1990 and 1996, played her first match since the second-round upset at hands of No.202 Muchova at US Open in her first loss to a player outside Top 200 since falling to No.312 Gibbs in qualifying at 2012 New Haven.
Bencic was sunk by her 23 unforced errors against just 15 winners in the first set, crucial to prevent her from clinching her third Top 20 win of 2018 (also No.5 V.Williams at Australian Open and No.6 Garcia at Wimbledon).
Muguruza, who showed a streak of stunning backhands in the closing games, will meet Eugenie Bouchard or Alison Riske. The unseeded Dominika Cibulkova, in Japan for three days, needed three sets to overcome Nao Hibino 6-1 5-7 6-3 to open her tenth main draw appearance at Toray Pan Pacific Open.
The Slovak achieved her best result here in 2015 with a run to the semifinals (l. A.Radwanska), and reached two further quarter-finals in 2014 and 2017, when she held two match points before being forced to retire against eventual champion Wozniacki.
Cibulkova improved to 3-0 against qualifiers in 2018, as she previously defeated Rus at US Open and Paquet at Strasbourg. "I always play long matches so it's kind of routine for me" said the former top 10, whose last loss to a player outside Top 100 came against No.165 Dolehide at 2018 Indian Wells.
Daria Gavrilova claimed a hard-fought victory after her 8th consecutive 3-set match in 2018. The Australian needed two hours and 53 minutes to defeat Kristyna Pliskova 7-6(2) 3-6 7-6(8) and avoid a sister-act in the second-round as she will now face No.4 seed Karolina Pliskova in her sixth match against a Top 10 opponent this year.
Gavrilova went up a break on three separate occasions throughout the first set and served to seal it to no avail at 6-5, but she dominated the ensuing tiebreak by the loss of two points, finishing it with her trademark dipping forehand pass.
Pliskova came back and twice came a point away from victory, at 5-4 in the third and then in the tiebreak. But Gavrilova, despite 12 double faults, came back from 1-4 in the decider and 3-5 in the final tiebreak to seal her 22nd WTA win this season.
Gavrilova extended to 8-5 her win-loss record in final set tiebreaks and set-up the fourth career meeting with No.4 seed Karolina Pliskova aiming to win the first ever set against the former world No.1.