Garcia and Sabalenka easily progress at Australian Open

Women's seeds Aryna Sabalenka and Caroline Garcia enjoyed the relative cool of the earlier part of the day on Rod Laver Arena in their opening matches.

Fifth seed Sabalenka, who opened the year by winning the Adelaide title without losing a set, kept up her fine form with an emphatic 6-1 6-4 victory over Tereza Martincova.

Fourth seed Garcia, who won the WTA Finals last season, was equally convincing with a 6-3 6-0 win over Canadian qualifier Katherine Sebov in just over an hour.

Garcia will next face another Canadian in 2021 US Open finalist Leylah Fernandez, who came from an early break down to beat Alize Cornet 7-5 6-2 for her first win in the main draw at Melbourne Park.

In other matches that escaped the heat shutdown, Italian 21st seed Martina Trevisan went down 6-3 6-2 to qualifier Anna Karolina Schmiedlova and twice Grand Slam finalist Karolina Pliskova beat Wang Xiyu 6-1 6-3.