Pavlyuchenkova advances at Korea Open

SEOUL, Sept. 16 (UPI) -- Third-seeded Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova survived a three-set challenge during Monday's opening action of the KDB Korea Open tennis tournament in Seoul.

Pavlyuchenkova had a pair of breaks in each set of a 5-7, 7-2, 6-3 win over Anabel Medina Garrigues in a match that took 2 hours, 41 minutes. Medina Garrigues had three first-set breaks but only one after that.

Pavlyuchenkova dropped just seven points on serve in evening the match in the second set and saved one of the two break points she faced in the third set to advance to the second round.

Lara Arruabarrena, who also had two breaks in each set, was able to finish off her upset of fifth-seeded Elina Svitolina with a 7-5, 2-6, 6-4 win but No. 6-seeded Julia Goerges got past Misaki Doi 6-3, 7-5 in her first-round match.

Virginie Razzano took nearly two-thirds of the points in a 6-1, 6-1 win over Lourdes Dominguez Lino.

In other first-round matches, Vera Dushevina defeated Silvia Soler-Espinosa 6-4, 6-1; Alexandra Dulgheru eliminated Han Sung-hee 6-0, 7-6 (7-0); and Lee Ye-ra advanced over Daria Gavrilova 6-4, 6-1.