Former Grand Slam champion Martina Hingis did not seem to be firing on all cyclinders to beat China's Olympic champion Sun Tiantian 6-2, 6-3 at the China Open WTA tournament here in the Beijing Tennis Center on Tuesday.
The 27-year-old Swiss, who claimed five Grand Slam crowns during 97-99, needed only 58 minutes to sent the Chinese wild card packing in the first round match which had been scheduled one day earlier but delayed due to rain.
"She (Sun) started very well and hit some good return points. I was not ready in the first game to drop serve but later when I broke hers, my confidence came back," said Hingis.
"In my next match, I definitely will get ready from the first point, not from the first game. If I can choose the task, I will choose receiving rather than serving," joked the Swiss, who has improved to 2-0 lifetime against the Athens Olympic doubles winner.
Coming up next for the Swiss will be another Chinese Peng Shuai, who won an all-Chinese battle after getting the better of qualifier Xu Yifan 6-1, 6-4.
"I met Peng once last year. It was a tough match. She was a good hitter from the baseline and she made many rallies. She was solid.It was quite similar like today's match," Hingis said.
On a day that was not good for Chinese, Grand Slam doubles winner Yan Zi also tumbled out after losing 7-5, 6-3 to qualifier Abigail Spears of the United States.
The 2006 Australian Open and Wimbledon doubles winner compiled a stunning performance recently in singles' event on tour, but was broken five times by her 26-year-old opponent in the match.
Elsewhere, in-form eighth seed Eleni Daniilidou of Greece had a much easier time of it as she overwhelmed Olga Govortsova from Belarus 6-2, 6-1, breaking the 19-year-old youngster six times in all.
There were good fortunes for Janan as the Japanese number two and three Aiko Nakamura and Akiko Morigami both earned straight sets win in the first round, beating Lourdes Dominguez Lino 6-1, 7-6(4) and seventh seed Anabel Medina Garrigues 6-4, 6-4, both from Spain.
The only bad news that came to organisers of the 600,000 US dollars event was the persistent rain which fell down for the second consecutive day, but it ceased in time for them to revise the order of play and make it fully-packed on all playing courts.
The top four seeds, however, eluded the rain breaks in the past two days as they all enjoyed bye in the first round.
Russia's second and fourth seeds Svetlana Kuznetsova and Elena Dementieva at Tuesday's press conference both expressed that the Beijing Olympics, just one year out, have been in sight of Russia.
"I think the Olympic Games is more important (than the tour). To represent my own country is an honor to me. I hope I can represent Russia again next year to participate in the Beijing Olympic Games.So I decide to come here and know more about the city," said Dementieva.
While world number two Kuznetsova noted that the Russian team will prepare for the Olympics Games carefully and even "have a chance to win the title."
Source: Xinhua
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