Tour veteran Roberta Vinci secured her first round win at the TEB BNP Paribas Istanbul Cup after defeating Russia's Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova in straight sets with a 6-2, 6-1 victory. The 32-year-old from Palermo, who needed only an hour to send the seventh seed home, dominated the match by scoring 8 aces and winning 88% of her first serve. Next up for the Italian is the winner of the Alexandra Panova and Elizaveta Kulichkova match.

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Meanwhile, the tournament's top seed Venus Williams will face Kateryna Bondarenko for her opening match. This marks the American's first game since Wimbledon following her exit at the hands of her sister Serena. The Ukrainian qualifier, who's trying to get back on tour after becoming a mother, beat Venus once at the Rogers Cup in 2009 and the 28-year-old still remembers that day in Toronto when she won in a nail-biting 3-setter with the score of 1-6,7-5, 6-4.

"In the first set I didn't know what to do with her power. The rest of the match, I just tried to keep the ball in play and to hit as many shots as possible," Bondarenko said, recalling the match. "It's just a match, but it's big because it was against Venus. If I can win against Venus, I can win against anybody."

In preparation, Williams was recently seen hitting the practice courts at the Esenyurt Garanti Koza Arena but there was no stopping the 35-year-old who went out and about in Istanbul playing tourist and posting photos on her Instagram account.

One of her visits included the famous Bosphorus Bridge that connects Asia and Europe where she hit with the country's famous tennis stars - Turkey's no. 1 Cagla Buyukakcay and rising star Ipek Soylu. After the event, Buyukakcay expressed how much the experience meant to her: "I said to Venus today, when she was here 10 years ago for the first year of the tournament, it was my first WTA tournament ever. It's such a pleasure to have her here again after 10 years."

Williams, on the other hand, felt positive with the outcome of the exhibition and had high hopes for the country's top stars.

"It's good to see young Turkish players like Cagla and Ipek coming through," Williams said. "It's definitely an exciting time for Turkish tennis!"

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