Sharapova into second round at China Open

Maria Sharapova bounced back from her Wuhan disappointment with a 6-4, 6-1 win over Kaia Kanepi in the first round of the China Open on Sunday.

Since winning the French Open in June, Sharapova's season has stalled somewhat, suffering a number of surprising defeats, the latest coming at the hands of Timea Bacsinszky, in Wuhan.

The Russian fourth seed looked shaky with an early break down against Kanepi, but she fought back to win the match at 6-4, 6-1 in one hour and 30 minutes.

"I thought I played a difficult opponent, someone that I've had trouble against in the past," Sharapova said. "She's capable of playing really well, has beaten top players before in her career."

"Her ranking has dropped a little bit this year, but overall I knew it was a challenging first round opponent and I thought I handled that quite well considering I didn't have a great result last week. I started off the match quite well and followed through with that."

Despite hitting six double faults, Sharapova was pleased with her serve, which helped her through a few uncomfortable moments.

"I actually thought I served quite well today," she added. "I was very aggressive and I put a lot of pressure on her.

"I'm usually somebody that goes for my serve. If I make more errors, I feel more confident knowing that I'm going for it rather than just making my opponent hit a ball. That's always been my philosophy. Of course, I don't want to see the number of double faults very high. But overall I thought in key moments I served well."

Elsewhere, former US Open winner Samantha Stosur of Australia beat Italian Francesca Schiavone 6-4, 6-2, No.12 seed Ekaterina Makarova of Russia notched up a hard-fought 6-7(8), 6-4, 6-4 win over WTA rising star Garbine Muguruza from Spain, No.16 seed Venus Williams of the United States outdid Britain Heather Watson 6-3, 6-1, and Roberta Vinci of Italy defeated Yaroslava Shvedova of Kazakhstan 6-2, 2-6, 6-1.