Australian fifth seed Samantha Stosur, coming off a shock first-round loss last week, defeated American Varvara Lepchenko 7-5, 6-1 on Monday at the WTA Southern California Open.
Stosur, the 2011 US Open champion, fell behind 3-1 in the opening set before rallying to capture it in 57 minutes and cruise from there to victory in her opener at the $795,000 hardcourt event.
“I got off to a little bit of a slow start, losing my first two service games. That isn’t how you want to start matches,” Stosur said. “But if you start poorly then end well, that’s all that matters. I got through that little rough patch at the start and then found my groove a little bit more.” Stosur had earlier been planning to take this week off and return to her Florida training camp. In other opening matches, two-time Grand Slam singles champion Svetlana Kuznetsova of Russia was ousted by France’s Virginie Razzano 6-2, 6-4 and Francesca Schiavone beat fellow Flavia Pennetta 7-6 (7/4), 6-7 (6/8), 6-4.