Fresh from a big weekend, WTA finalists Talia Gibson and Maya Joint have both been knocked out on day one at the WTA 1000 event in Beijing before lower-ranked Maddison Inglis and Taylah Preston brought the good news for Australian tennis.
New national No.1 Talia Gibson (No.37) followed her weekend's runner-up finish at the Singapore Open by bowing out 6-1 6-4 to Aliaksandra Sasnovich in the hard-court China Open on Wednesday.
Gibson, who lost her maiden WTA Tour final to Canadian Leylah Fernandez, was ousted in 84 minutes by the Belarusian qualifier Sasnovich, who next plays Russian 19th seed Ekaterina Alexandrova.
Earlier in the day, world No.75 and Australia's third-ranked player Maya Joint, who lost to compatriot Kim Birrell in the Korean Open final also on Sunday, had been beaten 6-3 3-6 7-5 by Sinja Kraus.
Joint dropped serve three times in the opening set, but broke her Austrian opponent as many times to take the second.
The 95th-ranked Kraus failed to wrap up the contest at the first time of asking after securing a break in the ninth game of the deciding set, but did so in the 11th to set up a round-of-64 meeting with compatriot and 16th seed Anastasia Potapova.
There was better news for qualifier Inglis, the world No.140 and Australia's No.8, who was a 6-4 6-4 winner over Turkey's Zeynep Sonmez, while Preston (world No.91 and Australia's No.5) later defeated German Tamara Korpatsch 6-2 7-6 (7-4).
Birrell (41), Daria Kasatkina (87) and Storm Hunter (182), who also survived qualifying, are the Australians in action on Thursday.
US Open finalists, and top-two seeds, Elena Rybakina and Aryna Sabalenka received first-round byes.
