SEOUL, South Korea -- Wimbledon champion Maria Sharapova
beat Emmanuelle Gagliardi of Switzerland 6-1, 6-3 Tuesday in the
first round of the $170,000 Korea Open.
Top-seeded Sharapova next faces Japan's Miho Saeki, who won her first tour match in two years by defeating U.S. qualifier Sunitha Rao 6-3,
4-6, 7-6 (5).
Sharapova is heavily favored to win the the inaugural tournament. The Russian is ranked eighth in the world, while No. 2 seed Shinobu Asagoe is ranked 46th.
Asagoe beat qualifier Seiko Okamoto 6-0, 6-2 in an all-Japanese match Tuesday and will meet Abigail Spears of the United States.
Two seeded players were eliminated. No. 6 Lubomira Kurhajcova of
Slovakia lost to Anne Kremer of Luxembourg 4-6, 6-1, 6-3, and No. 7
Saori Obata became ill in the heat and had to stop while trailing
Japanese compatriot Yuka Yoshida 5-7, 6-3, 2-0.
Fifth-seeded Katarina Srebotnik of Slovenia advanced with a 6-1,
6-1 win over Antonella Serra Zanetti of Italy. Israeli qualifier Shahar Peer defeated Lenka Nemeckova of the Czech Republic 6-1, 6-2, setting up a match against Srebotnik.
Rika Fujiwara of Japan topped Kim So-jung of South Korea 6-0, 6-4.
Information from The Associated Press and Reuters was used in this report.