Stosur up, Dellacqua down at China Open

Australia’s Samantha Stosur has advanced to the second round of the China Open with a straight-sets win over fellow tour veteran, Italy’s Francesca Schiavone.

The news wasn’t as good for resurgent left-hander Casey Dellacqua, who went down in three sets to German seventh seed Angelique Kerber.

Dellacqua, who has risen to be ranked 27th in the world on the back of a career resurrection, went down to the world No.8 6-1 3-6 6-3.

Earlier, the 13th meeting between the Stosur and Schiavone was one-way traffic, with the Australian taking the match 6-4 6-2 in just over 90 minutes.

Stosur was able to take advantage of Schiavone’s weak serve, breaking her eight times throughout the match, while only being broken once herself.

The Australian hit five aces and won 75 per cent of points on her first serve.

Stosur will take on resurgent former world No.1 Caroline Wozniacki in the second round. The Danish sixth-seed was the beneficiary of a first-round bye.

Wozniacki’s projected quarter-final showdown is a rematch of the US Open final against Serena Williams, but she certainly isn’t looking past her match-up with Stosur.

“There’s still a long way to go,” she said on Sunday.

“It’s the best players in the world here, so obviously it’s a very hard tournament to play.

“And at the end of the day we all need to win our first matches.”

Wozniacki holds a 4-3 head-to-head record over Stosur, winning their last two encounters, the latest being a 7-5 6-4 victory at Eastbourne, the traditional women’s Wimbledon lead-up.

It wasn’t a good day for the Italians, Sara Errani the highest-profile casualty, the 11th seed falling to Japan’s Kurumi Nara in three sets, leaving Roberta Vinci to fly the flag.

Maria Sharapova, Ekatarina Makarova and Venus Williams all advanced to the second round.

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