Japan's 40-year-old wonder woman Kimiko Date-Krumm beat newly-married Argentine Gisela Dulko 7-5, 6-0 on Tuesday in a post-honeymoon wake-up call to reach the second round of the San Diego Open.

Date-Krumm won the event in 1996 back in her first tennis life and just before she retired to eventually spend 11 years out of the game.

Her victory in just under 90 minutes with six breaks of the distracted Dulko got Date-Krumm off to a much more promising start at this edition after losing in qualifying rounds a year ago.

She was joined in the second round by Japanese compatriot Ayumi Morita, a winner over Australian Jelena Dokic 6-1, 4-6, 7-5 and second-round opponent for Serbian fifth seed Ana Ivanovic.

The 15th-seeded Italian Sara Errani continued the misery for injury victim Sania Mirza 6-2, 6-3, with the Indian last winning a match in mid-June.

Date-Krumm, who took five-time champion Venus Williams to three sets in their Wimbledon second-round encounter in June, said she had some luck in victory over Dulko, who married a Real Madrid footballer a few weeks ago.

"I was confused a bit in the first set," said the Japanese winner, who returned to tennis in 2008 and got back into WTA play by mid-2009 after years of encouragement from her German husband.

"I knew her game and how she wanted to play. When I was down 3-5 I started a small comeback. I had some mistakes but that was the start."

Agence France-Presse

(China Daily 08/04/2011 page22)