Cincinnati (USA) – Beatriz Haddad Maia’s debut at the WTA 1000 in Cincinnati was postponed due to rain on Monday. Bia led the scoring in the first set against Czech Karolina Muchova, 17th in the standings and Roland Garros finalist, by 3/2. The Brazilian already had a break of serve in his favor and escaped two break points after 26 minutes.

After two attempts to restart the match, the first at 10:00 p.m. (Brasília time) and the second at 10:45 p.m., the tournament organization decided to cancel the rest of the round, as it continued to rain. The game will not resume until Tuesday.

Number 1 in Brazil and 19th in the world, Bia managed to stay in the top 20 of the rankings, even without defending the points of the final of the WTA 1000 in Canada, reached last year. Now, the 27-year-old from São Paulo’s main goal is to stay in the top 16 seeds at the US Open, which starts in two weeks.

Muchova has won the previous two duels against Bia, the first in 2016 and the second last year in Ostrava. If she overcomes her difficult start, facing a rival who wears a lot of shorts and likes to go to the net, Bia could face Croatian Petra Martic or North American qualifying Emma Navarro.

Luísa Stefani would make her doubles debut
Another Brazilian in the tournament, Luísa Stefani, had her first doubles match postponed. Stefani and Russian Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova will face Russian Anastasia Potapova and American Bethanie Mattek-Sands.

Other matches are also postponed.
The tournament organization announced the postponement of nine more first-round singles matches, three of the men’s tournament and six more of the women’s bracket in Cincinnati. Among the matches that will be rescheduled are the Czech duel between Marketa Vondrousova and Katerina Siniakova, the The beginnings of Caroline Wozniacki against the French Varvara Gracheva and also the duel between Alexander Zverev and Grigor Dimitrov.

Three matches were in progress: Besides Bia’s debut, the Croatian Borna Coric paved the way against the American Sebastian Korda by 7/6 (7-5) and 4/3. Swiss Stan Wawrinka defeated local guest Brandon Nakashima 6/3, 6/7 (5-7) 5/2.