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Wozniacki battles through, Schiavone out at China Open

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Denmark's world No. 1 Caroline Wozniacki recovered a sluggish start to beat Czech player Lucie Hradecka for the second round at the China Open while Italy's seventh seed Francesca Schiavone became major seed casualty on Monday.

The China Open, which ran in its eighth year, was hit by a string of pullouts including world No. 1 Nivak Djokovic, Maria Sharapova and the Williams sisters. It was then followed by the first round upsets from world number five Li Na and former champion Jelena Jankovic.

The tickets sale might continue to go down when the Italian tactics master Schiavone joined Li and Jankovic in the early stars exodus after conceding a 6-2, 6-2 loss to Slovalian Dominika Cibulkova in just one hour and 15 minutes.

The 30-year-old Schiavone, the 2010 French Open champion and this year's runner-up who was defeated by China's Li Na, was totally out-of-form, giving her Slovakian opponent too much space to strike pinpoint forehand from baseline and dishing up too many unforced errors.

Schiavone has trouble with serving, landing only 42 percnet of her first serves and committing three double faults. Cibulkova, ranked 22nd in the world, converted on four out of six break points while the Italian only had one break point and failed to make it.

In the newly built National Tennis Stadium, Wozniacki needed almost 2 hours to claim the 3-6, 6-0, 7-5 victory over her much lower ranked opponent.

The defending champion got cold feet and was broken three times in the opening set. With two breaks down, Wozniacki dropped the set after battling for 37 minutes.

The momentum, however, was changed to the other side in the second set. The 21-year-old Dane seemed to be playing in a different league than in the first set and took it at love.

Despite the humiliating loss in the second set, Hradecka's confidence remained unaffected and the decisive third set became tough again.

The match seemed to head for tiebreak after both players held serve in first ten games. But Hradecka suddenly ran out of steam in the last two games, dropping serve in the 11th game and then letting Wozniacki serving for the match.

"She is a player that doesn't give you any rhythm. She's serving 200 kilometer per hour serves, so when is't on, it's difficult. It wasn't pritty match, but I'm through. That's what's most important," said Wozniacki, who has entered the 51st week as No. 1 on the WTA rankings.

The sweetheart girl has not won any Grand Slam title although she stays on the No. 1 spot for more than a year. Talking about that, Wozniacki said: "Pressure is when you're put in a spot where you feel you don't belong. I feel like I belong here, and my time will come."

The local hopes continued to be fading when the 12th seed Peng Shaui lost to Italian Flavia Pennetta 7-6(6), 7-5 in the first round. The 29-year-old Italian has become Peng's nemesis as she wrapped up all six clashes between them although Peng came close to victory in couple of meetings.

It's the best chance for Peng to break the jinx on home soil and the rivalry was close again, but she still fell short in front of a feisty Pennetta.

In an earlier match, the former Australian Open and Wimbledon women's doubles champion Zheng Jie kept the local hopes alive after beating another Italian Alberta Brianti 4-6, 6-1, 7-5.

Famous for her fighting spirit, Zheng clawed back from one set down to claim the first round victory in two hours and a half and remained the only Chinese player in the main draw.

The 28-year-old, who had been among the elite top 20 players, has slipped to 75th and her home court campaign might be dented in the second round with a date against Poland's 11th seed Agnieszka Radwanska.

Elsewhere, former world number one Ana Ivanovic from Serbia made short work of Russian Svetlana Kuznetsova 6-2, 6-3 in the second round action.

In men's part, Spaniard Fernando Verdasco defeated Frenchman Michael Llodra 6-2, 6-4 to make the second round and Croat Marin Cilic outpunched Chinese wild card Wu Di 6-2, 6-0. American Andy Roddick, who has slipped to 15th in the ATP rankings, stopped in the first round after losing to South Africa's Kevin Anderson.