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Cape Town - Chinese wild-card Zhang Shuai and Fourth-seeded Elina Svitolina both won their first round matches at the WTA Elite Trophy tournament in Zhuhai, China on Tuesday.
The Zhuhai event is made up of the leading players who did not qualify for the season-ending WTA Finals in Singapore last week.
The singles event features twelve players in a round robin event, split into four groups of three. Over the first four days, each player meets the other two players in her group, with the winner in each group advancing to the semi-finals.
Zhang, who replaced Carla Suarez Navarro in Group B due to injury, caused an upset when she hammered Swiss sixth seed Timea Bacsinszky 6-1, 6-1 in just 53 minutes.
She broke Bacsinszky's serve five times over the two sets to claim the convincing win.
In Group D action, Ukraine's Svitolina needed just less than two hours on court to defeat Dutch tenth seed Kiki Bertens 2-6, 6-4, 6-2.
In the opening set, the fourth seed dropped her serve three times to lose it 6-2.
Svitolina bounced back in the next two sets with a solitary service in the second set to claim it 6-4 and two more breaks in the decider to win the match and set 6-2.
In Group C, ninth seed Barbora Strycova of the Czech Republic cruised past Italian fifth seed Roberta Vinci 6-4, 6-3.
British Top seed Johanna Konta will open here account in Group A against Sam Stosur on Wednesday.
The players and groups:
Group A: Samantha Stosur (Australia), Johanna Konta (UK), Caroline Garcia (France).
Group B: Zhang Shuai (China), Tímea Babos (Hungary), Timea Bacsinszky(Switzerland).
Group C: Barbora Strýcová (Czech Republic), Roberta Vinci (Italy), Petra Kvitová (Czech Republic).
Group D: Elena Vesnina (Russia), Elina Svitolina (Ukraine), Kiki Bertens (Netherlands).
