Sam Stosur has kicked off her Japan Open title defence with a 6-4 7-5 victory of 22-year-old Misa Eguchi.
After cruising past Eugenie Bouchard in the hard-court final last year, Stosur entered the tournament on the back of some recent form, including last week’s upset win over Caroline Wozniacki and subsequent semi-final defeat at the hands of Petra Kvitova.
The two-time tournament winner (2009, 2013) translated her recent success into a 90-minute victory on Tuesday night, collecting 84 percent of points on her first serve and fighting back from a break down in the second set to dismiss the Japanese world No.127.
Stosur’s bid to claim tournament honours and the cool US$1,373,420 winning prize check will see the world No.18 now face fellow Aussie Jarmila Gajdosova, who eased past local entrant Miharu Imanishi 6-4 6-0 and has a 2-0 career record against the former US Open winner.
In other news, Australian hopefuls Thanasi Kokkinakis and Sam Groth both stumbled in first round losses at the Shanghai Masters.
Slovakian Martin Klizan got the best of Groth in a 7-6 (7-1) 6-3 result, while Spain’s Feliciano Lopez edged 18-year-old Kokkinakis 6-7 (12-14) 6-3 6-4.
Andy Murray was forced to tough it out against Russia’s Teymuraz Gabashvili 6-1 7-5 as the Scot attempts to book a spot in the season-ending ATP World Tour Finals.
The 27-year-old needed 85 minutes to secure the result and requires a deep run at the tournament to improve on his current ranking of 11 for a spot in the exclusive top eight London tournament.
“I started the match well and he wasn’t in very much of a rhythm at the beginning and I was dictating a lot of the points and using good variety, and that helped,” he said of his Shanghai opener.
“I started using a variety again at the end of the second set. I was using a lot more high balls up to his backhand and that was pushing him back off the baseline and I was able to dictate the points. It was a good start for me … but there’s still some work to be done.”
Photo: Matthew Stockman/Getty Images
