Tuesday 14 October 2014 21:40, UK
Sixth seed Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova is through to the second round of the Kremlin Cup, but eighth seed Caroline Garcia suffered a shock loss.
Local favourite Pavlyuchenkova prevailed 6-3 6-4 over Croatian teenager Ana Konjuh, breaking her opponent once in each set to win in one hour 21 minutes.
It was the first time the two players had met and Pavlyuchenkova was pleased to progress.
"I knew almost nothing about my opponent and was mostly focused on my own performance," Pavlyuchenkova said.
"In general I'm pleased with my tennis today as it's always difficult to start a new tournament especially in front of my home crowd."
But French eighth seed Garcia was shocked 6-4 6-2 by Serbian wild card Aleksandra Krunic, who broke her opponent twice in both sets, while being broken back only once in the first set.
Garcia said: "It was difficult to oppose Krunic as she played really well today.
"She served well and moved around the court pretty fast while I experienced certain complications and failed to match her solid performance tonight."
In the men’s singles, last year's runner-up Mikhail Kukushkin had to come from a set down to win 6-7 (3/7) 6-0 6-2 in his first round clash with Russian wild card Karen Khachanov.
Australia’s Samuel Groth beat Russia’s Andrey Rublev 7-6 (7/4) 7-5 and Ricardas Berankis, of Lithuania, also saw-off home favourite Aslan Karatsev 6-3 6-4.
But the home crowd had something to cheer when Russia’s Evgeny Donskoy beat Israel’s Dudi Sela 6-4 6-0 to make it through to the second round.
Also through are Croatia’s Ivan Dodig, who beat Pere Riba of Spain 6-4 6-2, while Argentina’s Juan Monaco was pushed hard by Paolo Lorenzi before prevailing 6-3 5-7 6-3 over the Italian.
