Emma Navarro Photo: Brett Phibbs
Two seeded players through and two departed as the women's second round singles got underway at the ASB Classic in Auckland.
American number four seed, Emma Navarro made short work of Elina Avanesyan 6-1 6-2 while Czech Republic's Marie Bouzkova, ranked number five, was unchallenged in disposing American wildcard Amanda Anisimova.
A former top-25 world ranked player Anisimova was thwarted by a muscle injury after she had impressed in her opening round victory.
Wang Xiyu needed two three-set tiebreaks to overcame the sixth seed and fellow Chinese player Wang Xinyu 7-2 in the 6-3 3-6 7-6 victory.
She returned later to join compatriot Yue Yuan in their first-round doubles clash against second seeds Anna Danilina and Viktoria Hruncakova. This time she was on the receiving end of the tiebreak, losing 6-4 7-6.
Third seed Lesia Tsurenko from Ukraine started strongly but had to give way to the excellent ground strokes of Frenchwoman Diane Parry who claimed the honours 2-6 6-4 6-1 in her strong start to the 2024 season.
There is a definite New Zealand link into the second round of the doubles Marlborough's Jade Otway and Te Anau-born Lulu Sun too strong for fellow kiwis, Auckland's Elyse Tse and Melbourne-based Monique Barry, winning 6-3 6-2.
The second round of singles will be completed on Thursday with top seed Coco Gauff taking on Czech qualifier Brenda Fruhvirtova with much interest in the showdown at the bottom of the draw between second seed Elina Svitolina, the winner of 17 WTA singles titles including the WTA Finals in 2017, and 2021 US Open winner Emma Raducanu from Great Britain.