Ninth seed Ana Ivanovic retired her match against Russian Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova and Sabine Lisicki outlasted 14^th seed Lucie Safarova in three sets at the Wuhan Open in China on Monday.

The WTA Asian tournaments took a toll on the 26-year-old Serbian as she retired after a set down and trailing 5-6 on the second set against Pavlyuchenkova, just a day after winning the Toray Pan Pacific Open title in Tokyo against Caroline Wozniacki.

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Pavlyuchenkova, 23, was relentless in the first set as she took advantage of a service break late in the set 7-5.

Both players were hammering it out in the second set but after Pavlyuchenkova won her sixth game, Ivanovic retired to give the match to the Russian.

Pavlyuchenkova is set to face Australian Casey Dellacqua who defeated Roberta Vinci of Italy in straight sets 7-5 7-5.

Incidentally, Vinci's doubles partner Sara Errani, who is seeded 11^th, is also in the singles competition and have won her opening match against Heather Watson 7-5 6-4.

The recent Hong Kong Tennis Open champion Lisicki outlasted a three set matchup against Czech Republic's Safarova in their first round matchup 7-5 2-6 6-3.

The 25-year-old German faces another tough challenge in the second round as she goes up against an up and coming star from Ukraine, 20-year-old Elina Svitolina, who easily won her opening matchup against Italian Camila Giorgi 6-2 6-3.

Others who have won their opening matches were German Mona Barthel who defeated crowd favorite U.S. Open semifinalist Peng Shuai 6-2 7(7)-6(1) and Frenchwoman Alize Cornet who easily won over Romina Oprandi of Switzerland 6-2 6-1.

Barthel is set to face Canadian star Eugenie Bouchard in the second round while Cornet will battle it out with World No. 1 Serena Williams.

Cornet upset Williams in the recent Wimbledon Championship in the third round but eventually lost to finalist Bouchard in the fourth round.

TagsAna Ivanovic, sabine Lisicki, Sara Errani, Peng Shuai, serena williams