Qualifying began Saturday at the Racquet Club of Memphis as the U.S. National Indoor Championships began its annual run.
Almost one-half of the women's qualifying draw was made up of American players and five advanced to the finals of qualifying that will be played on Sunday.
Madison Keys, who the world took notice of at the 2013 Australian Open opened the play on Stadium Court with a convincing 6-3, 6-4 win over another American in former Stanford player Mallory Burdette.
Keys has moved her ranking into the top-100 and is the top seed in the qualifying draw.
Californian Alexa Glatch also moved on with a win over former Canadian No. 1 Rebecca Marino.
Also advancing were Irina Falconi who beat Vesna Dolonc of Serbia 6-1, 3-0 ret., Maria Sanchez who routed Elyzaveta Tymchenko of the Ukraine, and the 2012's top junior player in the world Taylor Townsend.
Townsend, with a good amount of crowd support behind her won a three-setter with Valeria Savinykh.
Townsend will next be matched with Claire Feuerstein of France on Sunday for a spot in the main draw.
Saturday's full results:
KEYS [USA] def. BURDETTE [USA] 63, 64
GLATCH [USA] def. MARINO [CAN] 63, 63
FALCONI [USA] def. DOLONC [SRB] 61, 30, ret.
M. SANCHEZ [USA] def. E. TYMCHENKO 62, 61
T. TOWNSEND [USA] def. V. SAVINYKH [RUS] 62, 26, 61
J. CEPELOVA [SVK] def. M LARCHER DE BRITO [POR] 75, 75
C. FEUERSTEIN [FRA] def. M. PUIG [PUR] 61, 36, 76(3)
M. LUCIC-BARONI [CRO] def. S. KARATANTCHEVA [KAZ] 64, 63
In feature matches on Sunday, Keys will play Glatch, Falconi plays Maria Sanchez, and Cepelova takes on Mirjana Lucic-Baroni.
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