MOSCOW: Serbian qualifier Vesna Dolonc battled from a set down to upset former winner Dominika Cibulkova to advance to the second round of the joint ATP and WTA Kremlin Cup here on Tuesday.

Dolonc, 24, came through 3-6, 7-5, 6-3 winner against ninth seed Slovak Cibulkova, who won her first WTA title here in 2011.

The opponents traded breaks twice before Cibulkova made a break in the eighth game to clinch a 1-0 lead in 43 minutes.

In the second, the rivals continued trading breaks but this time Dolonc, who is 92nd in the WTA rankings, acted with more accuracy to level at one set all after one hour 43 minutes on court.

In the deciding set Dolonc made the winning break in the sixth game to take the set and the match in two hours 17 minutes.

Spanish sixth seed Carla Suarez Navarro upset home hope Vera Dushevina to ease into the second round.

The 25-year-old won through 6-4, 6-3 in one hour 19 minutes in her first meeting with 121st-ranked lucky loser Dushevina.

Top-seeded Angelique Kerber, coming off her third career title in Linz, Austria, last weekend, withdrew from the tournament on Monday with an abdominal strain.

Brands to meet Tsonga

In Stockholm, Daniel Brands booked a date with top seed Jo-Wilfried Tsonga as he sent a second home player to a first-round defeat on Tuesday at the Austrian Open.

The German, who staged the biggest coup of his career in July when he beat Roger Federer in the Gstaad second round, after losing to the Swiss the week before in Hamburg, won his opening challenge in Austria with a 6-4, 7-6 (7/5) win over 2010 finalist Andreas Haider-Maurer.

Austrian Martin Fisher went out on Monday to Radek Stepanek.

Brands now has the chance to start reversing a run of poor form since his upset of Federer three months ago by taking another top 10 scalp in a dream scenario against Tsonga.

Tsonga has beaten Brands in both of their previous meetings, including a semi-final here in 2011.

Elsewhere at the Stadthalle, Bosnian qualifier Mirza Basic beat American Michael Russell 6-3, 6-4 and Ruben Bemelmans of Belgium stopped Czech Jan Hajek 6-2, 6-0.

Australian Lleyton Hewitt was making his Vienna debut later as he faced Canadian Vasek Pospisil, the seventh seed. Hewitt is playing through a wrist injury, which has bothered him for several weeks and will get the problem checked in the close season in Australia.