Seeds Hold Strong on Day 1 of Qualifying

The top six seeds were victorious on Saturday at the Volvo Car Open, each of them moving a win away from a main draw berth at the first clay court event of the WTA season.

No. 1 seed Kateryna Kozlova had no trouble with German wild card Jasmin Jebawy, winning 6-1, 6-1 on Court 3.

MORE: Singles Main Draw | Qualifying Draw | Previewing the Main Draw

In fact, seeds No. 2-6, Astra Sharma, Conny Perrin, Varvara Flink, Tereza Martincova and Caroline Dolehide all won without dropping a set. They’ll each be favored in their respective matches Sunday.

No. 7 seed Bibiane Schoofs of the Netherlands fell to American Kayla Day (pictured above) in a tight contest, 7-5, 6-7(1), 6-3 on Althea Gibson Club Court. The match lasted two hours, 58 minutes in total.

Day will join Dolehide, Francesca Di Lorenzo, Lauren Davis and Nicole Melichar as Americans in action Sunday.

Play starts at 10am, with Davis, the No. 12 seed, taking on the Russian Flink on the Club Court in the first match on.

Dolehide and Day will play on that court to follow, Dolehide taking on Ukraine’s Nadiia Kichenok while Day meets Di Lorenzo. Melichar, who won the Wimbledon mixed doubles crown last season, will play Kozlova.

Eight spots in total will be at stake for the main draw, which was determined on Saturday afternoon.

Davis is a former top 30 player as recently as 2017 while Day was the 2016 US Open junior girls winner.

Dolehide, 20, qualified here last year before making the second round of the main draw.

Other winnners Saturday included Australia’s Destanee Aiava, Shuko Aoyama of Japan, Magdalena Frech of Poland, Martina Trevisan of Italy and Sesil Karatantcheva of Bulgaria.

Gates open Sunday at 9am for a 10 o’clock start. It’s Family Weekend presented by MUSC Health, and tickets are just $10 while kids 16 and under get in free. The tennis will take center stage, but there are activities abound for the whole family.