Agence France Presse

Tokyo, February 2:

Wimbledon champion Maria Sharapova needed some time to get used to the fast indoor surface here before overpowering Venezuela’s Maria Vento-Kabchi at the Pan Pacific Open tennis tournament on Wednesday.

The 17-year-old Russian starlet, semi-finalist at the Australian Open last week, had to come

back from a service break down twice in the first set and missed three set points before scoring a 7-6, 6-0 win.

US Open champion Svetlana Kuznetsova of Russia, who received a first-round bye with other top three seeds, also overcame a slow start to beat Marie-Gayanay Mikaelian of Switzerland 6-3, 6-1 for a place in the quarter-finals.

Vento-Kabchi, ranked 50th against Sharapova’s fourth, used her accurate placement to counter-attack the Russian, who tried to finish a point by hitting her signature hard-hit winners from the baseline.

But Vento-Kabchi hit too many double faults to lose the second and sixth games, allowing Sharapova to get into her rhythm afterwards.

Sharapova misfired her shots on her first set point in the 10th and another two in the 12th, but made no errors in the tie-breaker, choking up a 6-3 lead to finish with a forehand service return winner.

Everything went perfect in the second set with Sharapova hitting better serves and returns, and completing her three service games with an ace for a total of eighth — five of them in the second set.

BellSouth Open:

VINA DEL MAR: Sixth-seeded Jose Acasuso of Argentina saved a match point in beating Olivier Patience of France 6-1, 3-6, 7-6 in the first round of the BellSouth Open.

Fourth-seeded David Ferrer of Spain downed countryman and qualifier Albert Portas 6-4, 6-4, and No 7 Agustin Calleri of Argentina passed Alex Calatrava of Spain 6-2, 6-3, but No 8 Potito Starace of Italy was knocked out by Ruben Ramirez-Hidalgo of Spain 6-1, 6-2. David Sanchez of Spain, the champion in 2003, ousted countryman Albert Montanes 5-7, 6-4, 6-4.

The tournament lost one of its top attractions last week when Nicolas Massu, a native of Vina del Mar, was sidelined with a leg injury. Organisers extended a last-minute invitation to French Open winner Gaston Gaudio, who accepted and was the top seed.

Lombardia Indoors

MILAN: Third-seeded Mario Ancic of Croatia fired 17 aces to beat Bohdan Ulihrach of the Czech Republic 6-4, 7-5 in the first round of the Internazionali di Lombardia.

Fourth-seeded Radek Stepanek of the Czech Republic defeated Italian Daniele Bracciali 7-6, 6-4, and No 6 Rainer Schuettler of Germany downed Davide Sanguinetti of Italy, the 2002 champion, 7-5, 4-6, 6-3 at Palalido Sports Palace.

Wild card Andreas Seppi won an all-Italian first-round match against qualifier Uros Vico 6-2, 7-6, but Italy’s Davis Cup regular Giorgio Galimberti lost five consecutive points at 4-2 in the decisive third-set tiebreaker to Ivo Heuberger of Switzerland and bowed out 4-6, 6-3, 7-6.

Sergiy Stakhovsky of Ukraine clinched his first win on the main ATP tour by beating Christophe Rochus of Belgium 6-2, 6-3.