World number four Maria Sharapova powered through her opening match at the $5.4 million China Open on Sunday, joining second seed Simona Halep and Angelique Kerber of Germany in the second round.
The Russian eased past Estonia’s Kaia Kanepi 6-4, 6-1 in her opening match of the tournament, while Romanian Halep also won convincingly against Czech player Barbora Zahlavova Strycova 6-1, 6-4.
World number eight Kerber took three sets to overcome Casey Dellacqua of Australia 6-1, 3-6, 6-3.
Halep, who has risen from 11th to 2nd in the WTA rankings since the start of the year, faces Chinese wildcard Zhu Lin in the next round, while Kerber will meet Zayina Diyas of Kazakstan.
Sharapova will be confronting a player in high spirits when she comes up against world number 34 Elina Svitolina.
The Ukrainian beat Kerber earlier this week at the WTA Wuhan Open to make it to the semi-finals of the premier-ranking event, and her confidence will be sky-high.
But Sharapova will go into the game taking positives from her showing in the Chinese capital.
The 27-year-old crashed out in Wuhan with a demoralising two-set defeat against Timea Bacsinszky in the third round, but she looked more assured at Beijing’s Olympic Park.
She traded breaks with her opponent twice midway through the first set, before breaking again with the scores 5-4 in her favour to take the opener.
Kanepi won only the fourth game of the second set, as Sharapova took command and wrapped up the match in 90 minutes.
“I thought I played a difficult opponent, someone that I’ve had trouble against in the past,” said Sharapova.
“I knew it was a challenging first round opponent and I thought I handled that quite well considering I didn’t have a great result last week.”
Sara Errani became the first seed to tumble as Kurumi Nara of Japan sealed a 3-6, 6-3, 6-4 victory.
The 11th seed was hoping for a good run in Beijing to improve her slim chance of making next month’s WTA Finals in Singapore, which features the top eight women’s players of the season.
Venus Williams eased through her first-round tie against Britain’s Heather Watson 6-3, 6-1.
But the American could also face a tough battle in the next round, as she is set to play Caroline Garcia if the rising French star wins her game against China’s Zhang Shuai.
The 20-year-old dumped Williams out of the Wuhan tournament in the first round last week.
Former US Open winner Samantha Stosur finally ended her miserable run in China, overcoming Francesca Schiavone of Italy 6-4, 6-2.