Canada's Aleksandra Wozniak returns the ball to Caroline Wozniacki of Denmark during their Women's singles match at the Australian Open tennis championship in Melbourne, Australia, Wednesday Jan. 20, 2010. (AP Photo/Rick Rycroft)Rick Rycroft/The Associated Press
Sixth-seeded Aleksandra Wozniak of Blainville, Que., won her first round match Monday at the MPS Group Championships tennis tournament.
Wozniak advanced to the second round with a 6-4, 6-3 win over American Sloane Stephens. She will face the winner of the match between Japan's Ayumi Morita and Kazakhstan's Sesil Karatantcheva.
In double's action, Marie-Eve Pelletier of Repentigny, Que., and Ekaterina Dzehalevich of Belarus beat the Danish duo if Malou Ejdesgaard and Caroline Wozniacki, 6-2, 6-1.
Third-seeded Dominika Cibulkova of Slovakia beat Melinda Czink of Hungary 6-1, 6-4.
"The first match is always tough so I didn't know what to expect," Cibulkova said. "I was moving her around and I was playing pretty solid today."
Cibulkova broke Czink four times in four chances and won 69 per cent of her first-serve points. She won only 32 per cent of her first-return points.
"My return was not at its best, it was really short," she said. "I was just pushing the ball back on the return and in the rally just trying to move her. I was serving well and that helped me a lot."
In other first-round matches, fifth-seeded Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova defeated fellow Russian Ekaterina Makarova 7-5, 5-7, 6-4; Alla Kudryavtseva of Russia beat American Jill Craybas 6-1, 6-4; and Sofia Arvidsson of Sweden topped Carly Gullickson of the U.S. 6-0, 6-2.