Australia's Samantha Stosur is back in the winners' circle with a win in Beijing's China Open snapping a two-tournament losing streak.
The former world top-five player missed this year's Wimbledon and US Open, where she is a former champion, because of a nagging wrist injury.
She returned to the WTA Tour for its Asian leg following New York but lost in the first rounds of both Guangzhou and Tokyo in the past three weeks.
However, the 33 year-old now ranked No.44 scored a straight sets win over world No.47 Katerina Siniakova from the Czech Republic 6-3 6-2 in Beijing on Sunday.
She now moves into a second round match up with newly-crowned French Open champion Jelena Ostapenko, the ninth seed.
Perhaps Stosur can pick the brains of fellow Australian Ash Barty who beat the Latvian in the semi-finals of the Wuhan Open last week.
In earlier results, Australia's Daria Gavrilova beat Estonia's Anett Kontaveit 7-5 7-5 to join Stosur in the second round.
Meanwhile, former world No.1 Caroline Wozniacki, who is also playing Beijing, became the sixth player to qualify for the season-ending WTA Finals in Singapore, the WTA said on Sunday.
The Dane, who defended her Pan Pacific title in Tokyo last week and reached six other finals this year, joins Garbine Muguruza, Simona Halep, Karolina Pliskova, Elina Svitolina and Venus Williams in Singapore with two spots left.
Wozniacki, who will make her fifth appearance at the October 22-29 event, reached the final in 2010 when Doha hosted the WTA finals.
"I'm very excited that I've qualified for the WTA finals again," the 27-year-old Wozniacki said in a statement.
The top eight singles players at the $US7 million prize money event will face off in a round-robin format for the Billie Jean King Trophy.
The eight best doubles teams will battle for the Martina Navratilova Trophy in a knockout format.
Share

