MASON, Ohio (AP) – Rafael Nadal and Karolina Pliskova – the No. 1 seeds in the Western & Southern Open – advanced with straight-set wins Wednesday, while the rest of their brackets suffered more top losses.
Nadal sat out an hour-long rain delay and beat Richard Gasquet 6-3, 6-4 on Wednesday night, finishing it off with two of his eight aces.
Pliskova needed only 67 minutes to get a 6-2, 6-3 win over Natalia Vikhlyantseva, a solid showing as the defending champion. She’d never faced the Russian and wasn’t sure what to expect.
