Tennis

Romania's Niculescu advances at St. Petersburg Ladies Trophy

Updated Mar. 4, 2020 10:06 p.m. ET

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ST. PETERSBURG, Russia (AP) Monica Niculescu of Romania, the world No. 37, moved into the second round of the St. Petersburg Ladies Trophy with a 6-0, 6-3 win over Russia's Natalia Vikhlyantseva.

Niculescu, seeded ninth, broke the 265th-ranked Russian teenager in the eighth game of the second set to go up 5-3, then held serve for the win in the Sibur Arena in St. Petersburg.

Russia's Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova, the fifth seed who takes on qualifier Klara Koukalova of the Czech Republic in a later match, is Tuesday's only other seeded player on the court. Top-seeded Belinda Bencic of Switzerland had a bye in the first round as did the next three seeds: Roberta Vinci of Italy, Caroline Wozniacki of Denmark and Serbia's Ana Ivanovich.

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