PARIS — Daniela Hantuchova will face top seed Maria Sharapova in the second round of the Open GDF Suez after beating Marina Erakovic Tuesday. Hantuchova was leading 6-3, 3-0 and looked set for a straight-sets victory before Erakovic retired without citing a specified reason. Sharapova leads Hantuchova 8-1 in their head-to-heads, with the Slovak's only win against the four-time Grand Slam champion who has won every major when they first played 10 years ago. Seventh-seeded Carla Suarez Navarro of Spain is also through to the second round after winning 6-1, 6-4 against qualifier Johanna Larsson of Sweden and next plays Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova of Russia. In other first round matches, Frenchwoman Alize Cornet, Yvonne Meusburger of Austria, Karin Knapp of Italy and Germany's Andrea Petkovic all advanced. Cornet labored past Magdalena Rybarikova of Serbia 6-3, 5-7, 6-2 and Meusburger beat Anna-Lena Friedsam of Germany 7-5, 6-1. Cornet closed out the first set on serve after breaking Rybarikova twice. The Serb struggled on her serve in the second set but Cornet missed chances to break her midway through the set and then twice dropped her own serve. At 6-5 and 30-40 on Cornet's serve, Rybarikova broke Cornet again to level the match. But then Cornet broke her twice at the start of the third set to open up a 3-0 lead and regain control. Zvonareva in 2nd round In Thailand, two-time champion Vera Zvonareva was through to the second round of the Pattaya Open Tuesday, claiming the first victory of her comeback following an 18-month absence from the game due to illness and injury. The Russian won 6-3, 6-2 over the tenacious Peangtan Plipuech of Thailand, who saved 14 of 19 break points she faced and engaged Zvonareva in some lengthy rallies to stretch the match to one hour 42-minutes. Both top-seeded German Sabine Lisicki and second seed Svetlana Kuznetsova of Russia withdrew with injuries, and sixth-seeded Spaniard Garbiñe Muguruza was beaten 6-7 (2), 7-5, 7-6 (6) by 43-year old Kimiko Date-Krumm of Japan. But there were victories for Romanian third seed Sorana Cirstea as well as Ekaterina Makarova and Elena Vesnina from Russia. Lisicki withdrew due to a right shoulder injury. The 2013 runner-up struggled in her first round match Monday, taking two hours to overcome Croatia's Donna Vekic in three sets, and admitted after the match that it had been almost impossible for her to serve effectively. Lisicki's second round opponent, Czech Andrea Hlavackova, now advances to the quarterfinals. Second seed Svetlana Kuznetsova also later withdrew, citing a left hip injury and allowing Julia Goerges a walkover into the quarterfinals. NZ bests China In Beijing, New Zealand's Davis Cup doubles partnership of Marcus Daniell and Michael Venus kept their Asia/Oceania Group 1 tie against China alive Tuesday with a straight-sets win against the host. China leads 2-1 in the northern port of Tianjin after winning both the opening singles Monday, with the reverse singles matches set for Wednesday. New Zealand's Venus is ranked a lowly 384 in the world, with Daniell well back at 592, but they are still several hundred places above their Chinese opponents Gong Maoxin, 757, and Li Zhe, 845. The visitors took the first set 6-3, won the second on a 7-3, and wrapped up the win with a 7-5 third set. New Zealand is newly promoted to Group 1 after beating the Philippines in September, while China had to face Chinese Taipei in a relegation playoff in April. — Agencies
