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Solid Paris start for Stosur

Paris - 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.

The 2010 runner-up 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 No 1, 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."

Latest results from the first day of the 2012 French Open at Roland Garros on Sunday (x denotes seeded player):

Women

First round

Lucie Safarova (CZE x20) bt Anastasiya Yakimova (BLR) 6-2, 6-0
Samantha Stosur (AUS x6) bt Elena Baltacha (GBR) 6-4, 6-0
Svetlana Kuznetsova (RUS x26) bt Mirjana Lucic (CRO) 6-1, 6-3
Melanie Oudin (USA) bt Johanna Larsson (SWE) 6-3, 6-3
Mara Jos Martnez (ESP) bt Eva Birnerov (CZE) 4-6, 6-4, 8-6
Irina Falconi (USA) bt Edina Gallovits (ROM) 3-6, 6-3, 6-1
Angelique Kerber (GER x10) bt Zhang Shuai (CHN) 6-3, 6-4

Men

First round

Fabio Fognini (ITA) bt Adrian Mannarino (FRA) 6-0, 7-5, 6-1
Marin Cilic (CRO x21) bt Daniel Muoz (ESP) 6-4, 6-4, 7-5
Cedrik-Marcel Stebe (GER) bt Joao Souza (BRA) 6-3, 2-0 abandon
Edouard Roger-Vasselin (FRA) bt Vasek Pospisil (CAN) 3-6, 6-3, 6-2, 6-2
Juan Carlos Ferrero (ESP) bt Jonathan Dasnires de Veigy (FRA) 6-1, 6-4, 6-3

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