Several Grand Slam champions were in second-round action on Day 3 of the BNP Paribas Open. Reigning Australian Open champion Aryna Sabalenka was one winner on Friday, sweeping past Evgeniya Rodina. Here's how three more major champions fared:
[24] Jelena Ostapenko (LAT) d. Aliaksandra Sasnovich 7-5, 4-6, 6-2
Jelena Ostapenko added another seesaw victory to her rivalry against Aliaksandra Sasnovich, winning 7-5, 4-6, 6-2 in 2 hours and 5 minutes.
The former Roland Garros champion has now won five of her six encounters with Sasnovich, but four of those victories have gone the distance. This was another one to feature wild swings of momentum: Ostapenko led 4-0 in the first set, but Sasnovich pegged her back to 4-4 before she closed it out.
The second set saw Sasnovich relentlessly attack Ostapenko's second serve relentlessly, allowing the Latvian just two points out of 11 behind it. But Ostapenko improved that number to eight out of 11 to pull away in the decider. Sasnovich, meanwhile, will rue two separate games in which she served three double faults (including multiple foot faults).
Ostapenko's third-round opponent will be another Grand Slam champion -- Petra Kvitova.
[15] Petra Kvitova (CZE) d. [WC] Elizabeth Mandlik (USA) 6-1, 7-5
Two-time Wimbledon champion Kvitova won her first match of the fortnight by ousting American wildcard Mandlik in 86 minutes. Kvitova has been a two-time Indian Wells quarterfinalist in 2013 and 2016, but has yet to go beyond that round in the desert in her career.
Kvitova dominated the first set, where she won all nine of her first-service points and never faced break point. World No.155 Mandlik took a second-set lead up to 5-4 and served to tie up the match, but Kvitova rebounded, completing the win by reeling off the final four games.
Highlights: Kvitova def. Mandlik
Kvitova has a slim 5-4 lead over Ostapenko in their head-to-head, which began in 2016. Their most recent meeting was in a final, where Kvitova eased past Ostapenko 6-3, 6-2 to clinch the grass-court Eastbourne title last year.
[16] Barbora Krejcikova d. [WC] Dayana Yastremska 6-1, 6-2
Dubai champion Barbora Krejcikova extended her winning streak to seven after needing just 69 minutes to dispatch Dayana Yastremska 6-1, 6-2. The Czech had lost to Yastremska in their last meeting, in Doha last year, just before an elbow injury sidelined her for three months.
Krejcikova's revenge was ruthless. After losing the first game, she dropped just nine more points in the remainder of the first set, and reeled off eight games in a row to go up a break in the second. Successfully blunting Yastremska's power, Krejcikova's only minor blip came as she failed to serve out the match -- though she wrapped it up on the Ukrainian's serve in the subsequent game anyway.
