In the main draw, Russia's Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova defeated Australia's Ajla Tomljanović to progress to the second round.

Pavlyuchenkova won 7-5, 6-4 as the Australian made 34 unforced errors to hand the victory to the home favourite.

The world number 28 will have to face the top seed and world number one, Simona Halep of Romania, next.

Estonia's Anett Kontaveit is also through to the second round as she responded to a one set deficit against Russia's Anastasia Potapova to win, 2-6, 6-3, 7-5.

The match lasted two hours and 16 minutes.

Kontaveit will have to improve on her serve, as she conceded five double faults in the match, if she is to win against her next opponent. 

That will be either France's Kristina Mladenovic or Russia's Anna Kalinskaya.

Aliaksandra Sasnovich of Belarus also won her first round match.

She defeated Romania's Mihaela Buzarnescu, 6-3, 6-4.

Sasnovich will face fourth seed Kiki Bertens of The Netherlands in the second round.

Bertens received a bye in the first round and needs to reach the semi-finals of the Kremlin Cup to have a chance to qualify for the WTA Finals in Singapore.

In the third round of qualifying, Russia took four of the five final spots in the main draw.

Irina Khromacheva, Natalia Vikhlyantseva and Vera Zvonareva won against their opponents to automatically qualify for the main draw as Vitalia Diatchenko took the lucky loser spot.

The final qualification spot was won by Tunisia’s Ons Jabeur.

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