Bartoli takes Hobart first rounder in rout

HOBART, New Zealand, Jan. 10 (UPI) -- No. 1-seeded Marion Bartoli lost just one game Monday in rolling through a first-round victory at the Hobart International tennis tournament in Australia.

Bartoli swept by former world No. 1 Dinara Safina 6-0, 6-1. The match took a relatively long 92 minutes and 105 points but it was all Bartoli. Safina's only game win came on a service break. Bartoli, however, still took 67 percent of the points on serve and 61 percent off Safina's serve.

The tournament lost a pair of highly seeded players as No. 2-seeded Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova, after losing the first set 6-2 to Bethanie Mattek-Sands, retired with a hip injury and third-seeded Tsvetana Pironkova was defeated by Peng Shuai 2-6, 6-3 6-2.

Fifth-seeded Klara Zakopalova moved to the second round with a 6-3, 7-6 (7-3) win over Melanie Oudin and No 6-seeded Jarmila Groth needed just 49 minutes to beat Johanna Larsson 6-1, 6-3.

Other players claiming first-round wins in Hobart Monday included Elena Vesnina, Alberta Brianti, Elena Baltacha and Tamira Paszek. Also advancing to the second round were Alicia Molik, Olga Govortsova and Alla Kudryavtseva.