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W2W4 at Wimbledon: Victoria Azarenka-Karolina Pliskova will be win, lose and the draw

After successful opening-round wins, the Williams sisters will be back in action Wednesday at Wimbledon.

Venus started shakily on Monday, but after dropping the first set, she lost only three games in the final two frames. Serena was challenged by Arantxa Rus but ultimately prevailed in straight sets.

Neither Venus nor Serena has a terribly daunting opponent in the second round. Venus will take on Alexandra Dulgheru, a 29-year-old Romanian who on Monday won her first match at the All England Club since 2011.

Serena's opponent is even less accomplished. The 23-time Grand Slam champ squares off against Viktoriya Tomova, a player who just competed in her first Grand Slam event this past January in Australia, losing in the opening round.

While we're expecting routine wins from the Williams sisters, a handful of players will likely have more competitive bouts. Here's a look at our Day 3 matches to watch:

No. 7 Karolina Pliskova vs. Victoria Azarenka (Azarenka leads 3-2)

This is a formidable, perhaps even fascinating, matchup this early in the tournament. Pliskova has every tool to win a major event -- huge serve, powerful groundstrokes and above-average speed. Although Pliskova has strung together solid results, which include reaching the 2016 US Open final and the quarterfinals or better in four of her past six major events, you could make the case that she has underachieved given her raw talent.

Her opponent, Azarenka, could wind up being anything from a stern test that boosts Pliskova's confidence the rest of the fortnight to an upset specialist. Azarenka is a former world No. 1 and a two-time Australian Open champ. But she is only now starting to play regularly on tour again after giving birth, followed by a custody battle that did not allow her to take her son out of California.

Azarenka has missed six of the past eight major events, but she did reach the fourth round at Wimbledon a year ago. Still, duplicating or bettering that performance now goes through Pliskova.

"Yeah, draws have never been kind to me my whole career, so I don't expect -- I didn't really expect that to change much," Azarenka told reporters after her first-round win. "Maybe one day. You never know."

Stefanos Tsitsipas vs. Jared Donaldson (Donaldson leads 1-0)

If you're not familiar with Tsitsipas, a 19-year-old prodigy from Greece, you likely will be soon. He is one of the up-and-coming players earmarked as a future champion.

A former junior world No. 1, like his mother, Julia Apostoli, once was, Tsitsipas won his first career Grand Slam match last month at the French Open. Tsitsipas knows that expectations are high, as he said in his presser after his opening-round win: "Well, I think it's normal when someone is seeded, has good results in the past in some tournaments."

Tsitsipas has enjoyed his early days globetrotting the tennis tour; he has his own YouTube Channel and regularly produces his own podcast, "A Greek Abroad."

On Wednesday, he'll face Donaldson, 21, himself a precocious Next Gen player, who has struggled to find much momentum in 2018. Outside of a solid run to the semifinals in Acapulco, Mexico, early in the year, Donaldson has won consecutive matches only once this year. He did look solid in his Wimbledon opener, taking out Malek Jaziri in straight sets.

Sam Querrey vs. Sergiy Stakhovsky (Querrey leads 3-1)

Suddenly, Querrey has become one of the most feared grass-court players in the game. Last year he served his way into the Wimbledon semifinals before running into Marin Cilic.

Querrey has talked about streamlining his serve and leveraging the quicker courts at Wimbledon. His record at this event the past two years is an impressive 9-2.

Querrey likely won't be pushed too hard by Stakhovsky, a longtime journeyman on tour. But Stakhovsky has this going for him: Five years ago, he stunned Roger Federer in the second round of Wimbledon, one of the biggest upsets in the Swiss player's career.

But that was 2013, and in the 15 majors he's played since, Stakhovsky has made it past the second round just twice.