Lexington 2020: Tuesday's Order of Play and Match Points

ORDER OF PLAY -- All courts start at 11:00 a.m.

CENTER COURT

[1] Serena WILLIAMS (USA) vs. Bernarda PERA (USA)

[Q] Caroline DOLEHIDE (USA) vs. Cori GAUFF (USA)

Venus WILLIAMS (USA) vs. Victoria AZARENKA (BLR)

[Q] Leylah FERNANDEZ (CAN) vs. [7] Sloane STEPHENS (USA)

COURT 2

[LL] Francesca DI LORENZO (USA) vs. Catherine BELLIS (USA)

[Q] Anna KALINSKAYA (RUS) vs. Jil TEICHMANN (SUI)

Ajla TOMLJANOVIC (AUS) vs. [5] Yulia PUTINTSEVA (KAZ)

[WC] Shelby ROGERS (USA) vs. Misaki DOI (JPN)

COURT 3

[Q] Kristie AHN (USA) vs. Anna BLINKOVA (RUS)

[Q] Olga GOVORTSOVA (BLR) vs. [Q] Bethanie MATTEK-SANDS (USA)

Magda LINETTE (POL) / Jessica PEGULA (USA) vs. [2] Jennifer BRADY (USA) / Aryna SABALENKA (BLR)

After suitable rest
[3] Cori GAUFF (USA) / Catherine MCNALLY (USA) vs. Marie BOUZKOVA (CZE) / Jil TEICHMANN (SUI)

WEATHER

Sunny start, risk of storms later.

MATCH POINTS

Former World No.1 Serena Williams contests her first WTA match of the summer when she takes on fellow American and World No.60 Bernarda Pera in the opening round of the inaugural Top Seed Open presented by Bluegrass Orthopaedics on Tuesday. It will be their first meeting.

World No.9 Serena is the top seed this week, and she owns a 344-39 career win-loss record when competing as the top seed. She has won the title 38 times when sitting in the top spot of the draw.

Read more: Serena 'excited' to return to play in Lexington

Serena has a 316-51 win-loss record when competing on home soil and has won 27 of her 73 WTA singles titles in the United States. Additionally, she has only recorded 13 career losses to players ranked outside the Top 50, and her last of those defeats was at 2017 Auckland to then-World No.72 Madison Brengle.

Pera has a 1-3 win-loss record against Top 10 opponents. Her previous Top 10 win came over then-World No.10 Johanna Konta in the second round of the 2018 Australian Open, which propelled her into the third round of a Grand Slam event for the only time in her career thus far.

Head to Head

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venus williams

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USA

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66.7% Win 6

- Matches Played

33.3% Win 3

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victoria azarenka

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BLR

Venus Williams will join her sister on the Center Court schedule, where she will face Victoria Azarenka in a battle of former World No.1 players and Grand Slam champions. Venus and Azarenka have met seven times, with Venus holding a 5-2 edge.

Read more: ‘Ready to restart’: Azarenka awaits Lexington return

Seven-time major champion Venus is seeking her first win of the 2020 season. She fell in the opening round this year at the Australian Open (l. to Coco Gauff), Acapulco (l. to Kaja Juvan) and Monterrey (l. to Anna Karolina Schmiedlova).

Azarenka is also bidding for her first win of the year, having only played one event thus far in 2020 -- she lost in the first round in Monterrey to Tamara Zidansek.

Sloane Stephens rounds out the quartet of Grand Slam champions playing in Tuesday's first round (along with Serena and Venus Williams and Azarenka). The 2017 US Open champion will face 17-year-old qualifier Leylah Fernandez for the second time.

Fernandez stunned Stephens in Monterrey earlier this year in their prior showing. The week before, Fernandez had reached her first-ever WTA singles final in Acapulco, becoming the youngest Canadian to reach a WTA singles final in 34 years (Helen Kelesi won the 1986 Japan Open at age 16).

Stephens has won four of her six career titles in the United States: 2015 Washington DC, 2016 Charleston, 2017 US Open, and 2018 Miami.

Coco Gauff will face qualifier Caroline Dolehide in another all-American battle. 16-year-old Gauff and 21-year-old Dolehide will meet for the first time, as two of the 16 Americans in the Lexington main draw.

Currently ranked World No.134, Dolehide claimed the best win of her career against then-World No.30 Dominika Cibulkova at 2018 Indian Wells. She pushed then-World No.1 Simona Halep to three sets in the very next match before being defeated.

Read more: Gauff: 'It would be wrong of me to stay silent'

Gauff, the youngest player in the draw, enters this week ranked World No.53 – four spots shy of her career-high ranking of World No.49. 

2020 Lexington marks Gauff's third Tour-level event of the season, having reached the second round at Auckland and the round of 16 at the Australian Open. Gauff beat Venus Williams and Naomi Osaka at the Australian Open before losing to eventual champion Sofia Kenin.