Barbora Krejcikova began her Wimbledon title defense with a three-set victory over Alexandra Eala of the Philippines. The Czech, seeded 17th, overcame the 20-year-old Eastbourne finalist to win 3-6, 6-2, 6-1 in nearly 2 hours and 15 minutes of play.

Krejcikova started the match well and made a break, but from 2-1 up she only took one more game in the set. Eala, who played until the title match last week but lost in a hard-fought battle to Australia's Maya Joynt, fell 0-5 behind in the second set before falling eventually 2-6. Eala's strength began to fade and her opponent was even more convincing in the third set to win 6-1. Caroline Dolehide of the United States or Arantxa Rus of the Netherlands await Krejcikova in the second round.

After the biggest casualty among the women's seeds fell earlier in the day in the face of Jessica Pegula, ranked number 3, the American was followed by Olympic champion and fifth seed Qinwen Zheng, who lost to Katerina Siniakova of the Czech Republic after 5-7, 6-4, 1-6. Siniakova is Naomi Osaka's next opponent.

Eastbourne champion Joint was eliminated early after losing to Lyudmila Samsonova, while Xinyu Wang of China stopped number 15 Karolina Muchova. There was also a surprise in the match between Veronika Erjavec and Marta Kostyuk, where the 171st in the world rankings sent home the 26th seed after a three-set victory. | BGNES