Romania's Niculescu advances at St. Petersburg Ladies Trophy

ST. PETERSBURG, Russia (AP) Monica Niculescu of Romania, the world No. 37, moved into the second round of the St. Petersburg Ladies Trophy with a 6-0, 6-3 win over Russia's Natalia Vikhlyantseva.

Niculescu, seeded ninth, broke the 265th-ranked Russian teenager in the eighth game of the second set to go up 5-3, then held serve for the win in the Sibur Arena in St. Petersburg.

Russia's Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova, the fifth seed who takes on qualifier Klara Koukalova of the Czech Republic in a later match, is Tuesday's only other seeded player on the court. Top-seeded Belinda Bencic of Switzerland had a bye in the first round as did the next three seeds: Roberta Vinci of Italy, Caroline Wozniacki of Denmark and Serbia's Ana Ivanovich.