Paris, France – Australian Open champion Victoria Azarenka and last year's Wimbledon runner-up Agnieszka Radwanska were a pair of winners Wednesday at the 2013 French Open.
The third-seeded former world No. 1 Azarenka finally played her first-round match and handled Russian Elena Vesnina 6-1, 6-4 on the famed red clay at Stade Roland Garros, while the fourth-seeded Radwanska looked good in her second-rounder by pasting American Mallory Burdette 6-3, 6-2.
Rain wreaked havoc on the schedule Tuesday, as it took four days to complete round one.
"I felt like I'm one of the last ones to start," Azarenka said. "It was a long wait, but I think performance-wise it was a good match."
The reigning two-time Aussie Open champ will face German Annika Beck in round two.
Radwanska, meanwhile, has never advanced beyond the fourth round in Paris and was a third-round upset victim here a year ago.
She could've faced her sister, Urszula, in the next round if the younger sibling, who knocked out Venus Williams in the first round, beat German Dinah Pfizenmaier on Day 4. Her German counterpart, however, prevailed in 6-3, 6-3 fashion and will next face the older Radwanska.
Seventh-seeded former Wimbledon champion and 2012 French Open semifinalist Petra Kvitova outlasted Frenchwoman Aravane Rezai 6-3, 4-6, 6-2 to reach the second round, while eighth-seeded German Angelique Kerber landed in the third round with a 6-2, 6-2 spanking of Slovak Jana Cepelova.
A second-round upset came when Serb Bojana Jovanovski took out 10th-seeded struggling Dane Caroline Wozniacki, 7-6 (7-2), 6-3. The former world No. 1 Wozniacki has posted only one clay-court win since early last month and has now lost before the quarterfinals in Paris six times in seven trips.
Fifteenth-seeded Italian Roberta Vinci held off Kazakhstan's Galina Voskoboeva 6-4, 4-6, 6-2, while 20th-seeded Spaniard Carla Suarez Navarro came back to beat American Shelby Rogers 3-6, 6-4, 6-4, and 26th-seeded Romanian Sorana Cirstea subdued Swede Johanna Larsson 6-1, 6-4 in the round of 64.
Some other second-round results saw 29th-seeded American Varvara Lepchenko get past Ukrainian Elina Svitolina 7-6 (7-5), 6-1, 32nd-seeded German Sabine Lisicki drill Spaniard Maria-Teresa Torro-Flor 6-4, 6-0, and former French Open champ Svetlana Kuznetsova come back to best Slovak Magdalena Rybarikova 1-6, 6-2, 6-2. The Russian veteran Kuznetsova titled here in 2009 and was the Roland Garros runner-up in 2006.
In other opening-round play involving seeds, No. 12 Maria Kirilenko of Russia rolled past fellow countrywoman Nina Bratchikova 6-0, 6-1, in-form Estonian Kaia Kanepi took out No. 23 Czech Klara Zakopalova 7-6 (7-3), 6-2, and American Jamie Hampton doused No. 25 Czech Lucie Safarova 7-6 (7-5), 3-6, 9-7. Kanepi has now won six straight matches, including her clay-court title last week in Brussels. Hampton was one of 10 American women to win first-round matches this week.
Additional opening-round wins came for the aforementioned Beck, Swiss Stefanie Voegele, Aussie Ashleigh Barty, last week's Brussels runner-up Peng Shuai of China, and Slovak Anna Schmiedlova.
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