China's Zheng Saisai picked up where she left off at the WTA Tour's Stanford tournament Monday by beating Maria Mateas 7-5, 6-1 in a first-round match. Zheng won the doubles title at Stanford last year, joining forces with compatriot Xu Yifan to beat Anabel Medina Garrigues and Arantxa Parra Santonja 6-1, 6-3. Zheng advances to the second round where she will face seventh seeded Alize Cornet who toppled unseeded American Jennifer Brady 3-6, 6-4, 6-4. The 22-year-old Zheng has three career WTA doubles titles but is seeking her first singles crown. She is ranked 74th in the world in singles and 19th in doubles. Zheng blasted three aces and won 67 percent of her first serve points in the 85-minute match on the hardcourts at Stanford University. American Mateas recorded seven double faults and struggled with her serve, winning just three points total on her second serve. France's Cornet rallied from a set down to dispatch Brady in two hours and 44 minutes. She said she usually plays the WTA Washington event at this time of the year but decided to switch it up for a change. "I always wanted to come here to Stanford, but somehow I was always ending up in Washington, maybe because it was closer," Cornet said. Cornet dropped the first four games of the opening set against Brady in her first match since reaching the third round at Wimbledon. "I had some trouble in the beginning of the match. I just kept fighting," she said. In another match, Nao Hibino of Japan needed three sets to thwart a spirited challenge from Veronica Cepede Royg 7-5, 4-6, 6-4. Fifth-seeded Misaki Doi needed three sets to advance to the second round. Doi, who made the fourth round of Wimbledon earlier this month, cruised past Xinyun Han 6-0 in a 24-minute first set but fell 2-6 in the second. Doi started the third set by winning three straight games en route to 6-2. Nicole Gibbs topped fellow Stanford standout Carol Zhao 6-2, 4-6, 6-3 in the first evening match. Top-seeded Venus Williams, a recent Wimbledon semifinalist and a four-time Olympic gold medalist, plays her first match of the women-only tournament Wednesday night. Zverev moves up Mischa Zverev of Germany twice came back from a break down in the second set to defeat Facundo Bagnis of Argentina 7-6 (5), 7-6 (5) in the first round of the Generali Open Monday. Zverev dropped serve at 1-1 and again at 5-5 but Bagnis failed to serve out the set. The 146th-ranked Zverev converted his first match point with a drop volley for his first win on clay this season. Earlier, Daniel Gimeno-Traver won four of the last five games to close out a 6-4, 6-4 win over fellow Spaniard Inigo Cervantes. Gimeno-Traver rallied from an early break down in both sets to beat seventh-seeded Cervantes, who was the only seeded player in action on the opening day of the clay-court event. Karen Khachanov hit seven aces and came back from 3-0 down in the second set to defeat Filippo Volandri of Italy 6-2, 6-4. The 104th-ranked Russian will next play defending champion Philipp Kohlschreiber of Germany. Also, Igor Sijsling of the Netherlands, and Daniel Munoz de la Nava of Spain, won their opening matches. Schmiedlova, Knapp through Anna Karolina Schmiedlova of Slovakia won her first match on the main WTA Tour since January when she beat a local wild card in straight sets to start the Swedish Open Monday. Schmiedlova saw off Susanne Celik 6-1, 6-3 to end a run of 15 consecutive first-round defeats. It's the worst run of her pro career, which includes two titles last year. In another first-round match, Karin Knapp of Italy defeated Denisa Allertova of the Czech Republic 6-2, 6-4.
