Samantha Stosur has suffered her second straight first-round exit, winning just three games in a heavy loss to Shuai Zhang in the China Open in Beijing.
A week after a straight-sets defeat in the first round of the Wuhan Open to Caroline Wozniacki, world No.19 Stosur went down 6-1 6-2 to local hope Zhang on Sunday.
The Australian struggled on serve, broken six times and winning just a quarter of points on second serve.
It was Stosur’s second consecutive loss to doubles partner and friend Zhang, ranked 38 in the world, after going down in straight sets in the second round of the US Open last month.
World No.4 Agnieszka Radwanska moved to within two victories of clinching a place at WTA Finals in Singapore with a comfortable first-round win.
The No.3 seed had few worries as she swept aside wildcard Wang Qiang 6-2 6-2.
Radwanska missed the chance to qualify last week in Wuhan after a quarter-final defeat to Svetlana Kuznetsova and told reporters after the win: “You are always trying to not think about pressure, especially here, close to Singapore.
“I just hope I can do it here, that’s for sure. But, well, I had the situation last year when I had to win the Tianjin Open to qualify for Singapore, and I did it. Of course, it was last-minute qualifying.
“I will try everything to qualify a bit before that this year. Everything is open. This is a big event. Everybody can do a lot of points here. It’s a little bit more pressure, but I think every year it’s kind of similar situation for everyone, especially a lot of girls this year is really close and the rankings are very tight.”
Radwanska will face Ekaterina Makarova in the second round after she beat her doubles partner Elena Vesnina 6-2 6-1.
Seventh seed Carla Suarez Navarro suffered a shock 6-1 6-3 defeat to Yaroslava Shvedova, while Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova was another seed going home early after a 7-6 6-1 defeat to Alison Riske.
Johanna Konta raced to a 6-1 6-1 win over Anastasija Sevastova and Roberta Vinci overcame a second-set wobble to beat Saisai Zheng 6-0 3-6 6-3.
Madison Keys beat Ying-Ying Duan 6-0 4-6 6-1 and there were also wins for Timea Babos, Kristina Mladenovic , Misaki Doi and Yafan Wang.
