Sixth seed Roberta Vinci crashed out in the first round of the Guangzhou Open on Monday after losing in straight sets to Lin Zhu.
China’s Zhu, who is currently ranked 185th in the world, beat her Italian opponent 6-3 7-6 (8/7) and will now face either Belgium’s Alison van Uytvanck or Taiwan’s Su-Wei Hsieh.
There was also a surprise exit for eighth seed Annika Beck after the German was beaten 6-4 7-6 (7/5) by Spain’s Maria-Teresa Torro-Flor.
Torro-Flor will meet either Austria’s Patricia Mayr-Achleitner or China’s Yi-Fan Xu in the second round.
There were also victories for Alison Riske, Alize Cornet, Shahar Peer, Timea Bacsinszky and Misaki Doi.