The couple Monica Niculescu / Makoto Ninomiya (Romania / Japan) passed the first round of the “WTA 1000” tournament in Madrid.

Monica NiculescuPhoto: Julian Avram / AP / Profimedia

Pair Niculescu – Ninomiya in the second round of WTA Madrid

They advanced to the super tiebreak of Veronika Kudermetova / Lyudmila Samsonova (both from Russia) after 2-6, 7-5, 10-5.

The game lasted one hour and 29 minutes.

The opponents in the second round will be determined after the match between Storm Hunter (Australia) / Elise Mertens (Belgium) and Daria Kastakina (Russia) / Martina Trevisan (Italy).

The WTA Madrid doubles draw also features Romanian Gabriela Ruse, who together with Marta Kostiuk (Ukraine) will play Timea Babos (Hungary) / Anna Danilina (Kazakhstan).

The WTA Mutua Madrid Open takes place from April 25 to May 7 on clay at the Caja Magica complex. It is part of the WTA 1000 category and has a total prize pool of $7,652,174. Gabriela Dabrovsky (Canada) and Juliana Olmos (Mexico) became the doubles champions.