(MENAFN- Arab News) Oeiras portugal: canadian eugenie bouchard made a winning debut at the atp-wta portugal open on tuesday as third seed samantha stosur’s downward spiral continued with a first-round exit.

the 30-year-old australian stosur was beaten in just 72 minutes going down 6-4 6-0 to swiss qualifier timea bacsinszky and will now need to make amends quickly next week in madrid as the french open draws nearer.

stosur was roland garros runner-up four years ago and reached a semi-final in 2012 but her best result this season came four months ago when she reached the semi-finals in hobart.

second seed bouchard who was a semifinalist at the australian open in melbourne in january beat russian alisa kleybanova 6-4 6-1 to reach the second round winning in 73 minutes.

bouchard broke five times and made a spectacular recovery on a point in the second set in which she completely lost her footing but managed to win anyway with some luck and a shot hit while sitting down.

“i thought i was out of the point when i fell but she hit right back at me” said the world number 18. “for fun i hit it back and ended up winning. this has never happened to me in my life.” bouchard fired four aces and was helped by five double-faults from her opponent whom she also beat last summer on hardcourt in toronto.

“for a first match it felt pretty solid” said the winner. “i concentrated on serving well and i was happy to be able to do that. i wanted to control the points from my serve. i also tried to take the ball early.

“she has some big shots but i was able to neutralize well today.” bouchard will next face kazakh yaroslava shvedova for a quarterfinal place.

top seed carla suarez navarro recovered from last week’s wrist injury to start with a defeat of alla kudryavtseva 6-1 6-2.

italian fourth seed roberta vinci needed three sets to beat alexandra cadantu of romania while 2012 champion kaia kanepi the estonian fifth seed started with a crushing win over austrian yvonne meusburger 6-2 6-1.

russian seventh seed svetlana kuznetsova a 2013 quarter-finalist and eighth seed elena vesnina are also through.

in men’s play portugal’s world no. 243 rui machado thrashed fifth seed dmitry tursunov 6-0 6-0 with the russian unable to explain his collapse.

“i felt like a fish on land. i need to think hard about the state of my tennis and make some serious adjustments. i hope no one has to live through a match like that again” he said.

indian somdev devvarman defeated australian matthew ebden in straight sets while there was also a comfortable win for carlos berlocq against new york-born japanese davis cup player taro daniel.

two-time champion albert montanes won in straight sets against fellow spaniard roberto carballes baena.