Top seed Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova battled to a comeback victory over Elizaveta Kulichkova in the Baku Cup on a day where three seeds tumbled out at the first-round stage.
The 24-year-old Russian, looking for her eighth WTA Tour title, lost the first set before hitting back in the second and third to claim a 3-6 6-2 7-6 (7/4) win over her compatriot in Azerbaijan.
Third-seeded Slovakian Dominika Cibulkova had no such luck as she suffered a 6-3 7-5 defeat to Margarita Gasparyan of Russia in 91 minutes in the third match on Court One.
Last year's runner-up and 2012 winner, Serbia's Bojana Jovanovski also fell in straight sets as the fifth seed was beaten by Andrea Hlavackova of the Czech Republic 7-6 (8/6) 7-5 on Centre Court in just under two hours.
Eighth-seeded Italian Francesca Schiavone also came undone in two sets as the 2010 French Open champion suffered a 6-4 6-2 defeat to Donna Vekic of Croatia in the final match to get under way on Centre Court.
Oleksandra Korashvili eased through following a battle of the wildcards in the first match of the day as the Ukrainian saw off home favourite Zuleykha Safarova with a straight-forward 6-0 6-0 win in just 48 minutes.
Also on Monday, Russian Alexandra Panova recorded a 6-4 6-1 win over Magda Linette of Poland to reach the second round.
Source: PA
