Swiss fifth-seeded Martina Hingis won her first match at the China Open tennis tournament on Tuesday as she defeated Sun Tiantian of China 6-2, 6-3.
  
The 26-year-old Swiss, who is making her debut at a Chinese tournament Tuesday, has played Sun once before at Miami last year on hardcourts and won 6-3, 6-2.
  

Martina Hingis of Switzerland waves to the audience during the first round match of the women's singles against China's Sun Tiantian at the 2007 China Open Tennis in Beijing, China, on Sept. 18, 2007. Hingis won 2-0.

In Tuesday's match, though Hingis was not in her best form, she also beat her opponent with her strong, steady ground strokes in 58 minutes.
  
After an early exchange of breaks, the two players leveled the scores, but it was Hingis who pulled away first. Service breaks in the fourth and eighth games took Hingis to an easy first-set 6-2 win.
  
The second set, however, told a different story. Both players gained their serves and holding two games apiece. Then they traded breaks in sixth and seventh game. Finally, Hingis regained the momentum. She broke in the eighth game and won her final service game to a 6-3 victory.
  
In the second round, Martina will play Peng Shuai of China.
  
If the Swiss can go further, the first seeded player of the tournament she can meet is third seed Amelie Mauresmo of France in the quarters.
  
Top seed and defending champion Svetlana Kuznetsova is also on Martina's side of the draw.

On a day that was not good for Chinese, Grand Slam doubles winner Yan Zi also tumbled out after losing 7-5, 6-3 to qualifier Abigail Spears of the United States.

The 2006 Australian Open and Wimbledon doubles winner compiled a stunning performance recently in singles' event on tour, but was broken five times by her 26-year-old opponent in the match.

Elsewhere, in-form eighth seed Eleni Daniilidou of Greece had a much easier time of it as she overwhelmed Olga Govortsova from Belarus 6-2, 6-1, breaking the 19-year-old youngster six times in all.

There were good fortunes for Japan as the Japanese No. 2 and 3 Aiko Nakamura and Akiko Morigami both earned straight sets win in the first round, beating Lourdes Dominguez Lino 6-1, 7-6(4) and seventh seed Anabel Medina Garrigues 6-4, 6-4, both from Spain.

The only bad news that came to organizers of the US$600,000 event was the persistent rain which fell down for the second consecutive day, but it ceased in time for them to revise the order of play and make it fully-packed on all playing courts.

The top four seeds, however, eluded the rain breaks in the past two days as they all enjoyed bye in the first round.

Russia's second and fourth seeds Svetlana Kuznetsova and Elena Dementieva at Tuesday's press conference both expressed that the Beijing Olympics, just one year out, has been in sight of Russia.
 
"I think the Olympic Games is more important (than the tour). To represent my own country is an honor to me. I hope I can represent Russia again next year to participate in the Beijing Olympic Games. So I decide to come here and know more about the city," said Dementieva.

While world No. 2 Kuznetsova noted that the Russian team will prepare for the Olympics Games carefully and even "have a chance to win the title."

(Xinhua News Agency September 19, 2007)