Sixth seed Samantha Stosur of Australia reached the second round at the French Open on Sunday by defeating Britain’s Elena Baltacha 6-4, 6-0. On the other hand, Ana Ivanovic beased into the next round when she beat Lara Arruabarrena of Spain 6-1, 6-1.
The 2010 runner-up Stosur will next play the winner of the tie between Irina Falconi of the United States and Edina Gallovits-Hall of Romania.
The US Open champion got French Open proceedings underway on the Philippe Chatrier centre-court and wasted no time in jumping out into a 3-0 lead over the British number one, ranked 68 in the world.
Stosur served for the first set at 5-3 but was broken, only to use her heavy top spin to again force Baltacha onto the back foot in the next game
After going a set up Stosur earned a break point in the second game of the second set with a confident volley at the net and she took that when Baltacha hit a weak backhand into the net. A break to love two games later put the Australian 4-0 up and she had no difficulty closing out a one-sided contest in just over one hour. “It’s good to be on these courts again. I think it is obviously a beautiful court to play on. The ball definitely gets up high,” Stosur said. “You can use your kick serve and top spin groundstrokes. “It’s a bit of an early start, but always nice to get through it now. You have the whole day and whatever else to recover and enjoy.”
