Victoria Azarenka was handed a lifeline on her return to the WTA Tour as bad light resulted in her first-round Mallorca Open match against Risa Ozaki being suspended on Tuesday.

In her first match for over a year having taken time away from tennis around the birth of her son, Azarenka will return on Wednesday to try and stave off a comeback defeat.

The two-time major winner has one game to keep her tournament alive, trailing Ozaki 3-6 6-4 5-4 with the Japanese on serve.

Top seed Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova finished off Sara Sorribes Tormo 4-6 7-5 6-4 in a match held over from Monday, while defending champion Caroline Garcia beat former world number one Jelena Jankovic 6-4 6-4.

Carla Suarez Navarro – seeded fourth – was on the end of a surprise 6-3 7-5 loss against Catherine Bellis and fifth seed Kiki Bertens was forced to retire with her meeting with Sabine Lisicki, making her comeback after almost eight months out, poised at one set apiece.

Veronica Cepede Royg was unable to continue the tremendous form that carried her to the fourth round of the French Open as she went down to Varvara Lepchenko, with Ana Konjuh, Roberta Vinci, Francesca Schiavone and Shelby Rogers among the other winners.