Garcia falls to Cornet through injury

The first results are in for Brisbane and Shenzhen in 2018, although the matches were played on New Years Eve 2017

The first seed to fall was Diego Schwartzman (6) in a tight two setter to Alexandr Dolgopolov 4-6 6-7(3)

The other men’s battle saw Australian teenager Alex de Minaur, ranked 209, shock American Steve Johnson 7-6(7) 6-4.

The opening set could have gone either way but having won it, Alex dominated set two, winning all but one point on his first serve, and returning serve better than his far more experienced and highly credentialed opponent.

A less successful Australian was Samantha Stosur, whose hope for a good start to 2018 in her home State was vanquished by seventh seed Anastasija Sevastova.

Stosur’s first serve percentage in set one was woeful and Sevastova took full advantage of the second serve, eventually breaking four times for a 6-1 start.

The second set for Stosur was a marked improvement in terms of first serve percentage, but unfortunately she could not convert sufficiently.

Sevastova won 85% of points on her serve, while Stosur managed just 54%.

Inevitably Sevastova won easily 6-1 6-3.

Alize Cornet defeated her fellow French player Caroline Garcia after the fourth seed retired through injury. The match was tied at a set all when Garcia relented.

Other results:

Aleksandra Krunic d Carina Witthoeft 7-5 7-6(2)

Mirjana Lucic-Baroni d Tatjana Maria 6-4 4-6 6-0

Ajla Tomljanovic d Destanee Aiava 6-1 6-4 the partner of Nick Kyrgios defeating a promising young Aussie

Ana Konjuh d Kiki Bertens 6-1 6-2 in a surprisingly one sided match considering the two are separated by only six ranking points

First round in Shenzhen:

Ying-Ying Duan d Evgeniya Rodina 6-2 7-5

Aryna Sabalenka d Monica Niculescu 6-4 6-4

Irina-Camelia Begu (4) d Fangzhou Liu 6-1 6-2

Magda Linette d Jana Cepelova 7-5 2-6 6-4

Alison Riske d Qiang Wang (5) 7-5 6-0

Katerina Siniakova (6) d Ons Jabeu 6-1 6-1