Having spent all of the previous week on the bench watching her colleagues win the girls’ team event, Guo, who had moved smoothly through the qualification group stage at the Bendigo Stadium in Victoria, defeated Serbia’s third seed Sabina Surjan to reach tomorrow’s second round.

Surjan, who competed at the recent Buenos Aires Youth Olympic Games, was beaten 11-8, 12-10, 11-3, 14-12.

But the formbook held good in other girls’ singles first round matches as China’s first and second seeds, respectively Shi Xunyao and Qian Tianyi, progressed.

Shi beat Romania’s Tania Plaian 11-7, 11-4, 11-3, 11-5, and Qian overcame Italy’s Jamila Laurenti 11-7, 11-5, 11-8, 12-10.

The leading names also made positive starts in the boys’ singles.

Kanak Jha of the United States and India’s Manav Vikash Thakkar alongside China’s Xu Haidong and Ioannis Sgouropoulos of Greece all negotiated the opening round without the loss of a single game.

Top seed Kanak Jha of the United States beat Russia’s Maksim Grebnev 11-7, 11-9, 11-9, 11-1, and India’s Manav Vikash Thakkar, seeded second, accounted for Canada’s Jeremy Hazin 11-9, 11-6, 11-3, 11-5.

Meanwhile Xu Haidong, the number three seed, and Greece’s fifth-seeded Ioannis Sgouropoulos, denied the hopes of Chinese Taipei.

 Xu beat Lin Yung-Chih 11-5, 11-7, 11-5, 11-8, and Sgouropoulos defeated Tai Ming-Wei 11-9, 11-9, 11-4, 11-4.

There was one first round upset as Frenchman, Bastien Rembert, the number 15, was beaten by Iran’s Amin Ahmadian 7-11, 11-8, 11-8, 11-8, 13-15, 7-11, 11-8.

The second round and quarter-finals of the boys’ and girls’ singles will take place tomorrow.