Venus advances, Flipkens falls in Brazil

• Tweet

FLORIANOPOLIS, Brazil, Feb. 26 (UPI) -- Top-seeded Venus Williams breezed to a first-round win but No. 3 Kirsten Flipkens fell in an upset Tuesday at the WTA Brazil Tennis Cup.

Williams, the American former world No. 1, was originally set to play Monday but her match was washed out.

She wasted little time during the make-up, however, dispatching Croat Mirjana Lucic-Baroni 6-3, 6-3 in 79 minutes.

Belgium's Flipkens, meanwhile, was upended by Russian Olga Puchkova, who reached the second round with a 2-6, 6-4, 6-4 victory at the Federacao Catarinense de Tenis.

Advancing to the quarterfinals was Slovak Jana Cepelova, who surprised eighth-seeded Annika Beck of Germany 7-6 (8-6), 6-4 in Tuesday's the lone second-round match.

Other opening-round winners included fifth-seeded Slovak Magdalena Rybarikova, seventh-seeded Frenchwoman Kristina Mladenovic, German Tatjana Malek, Brazilian wild card Beatriz Haddad Maia, Hungarian Timea Babos, and Spaniard Garbine Muguruza.