**Venus Williams suffered a second-round loss to Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova at the China Open - her second defeat by the Russian teenager in a week.**The American was beaten 3-6 6-1 6-4 by the 18-year-old who had also claimed the scalp of the multiple Grand Slam winner in Tokyo last Monday.
In the men’s event, Novak Djokovic beat Victor Hanescu of Romania 6-3 7-5.
The Serbian world number four struggled to find his form in the match blaming jet lag for his below-par performance.
“That’s the first round, you have to get used to the ups and downs,” said the 22-year-old.
"I am aware I need to raise my level of performance to get far in the tournament.
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“I’ll have a rest tomorrow. I’m still a bit jet-lagged, I think you could see that in the second set.”
Djokovic’s campaign for his third title of the season started uncertainly against the 6ft 6in Hanescu, losing his serve early in the match. However, the Romanian was not allowed to settle as Djokovic mixed up his shots and fired 10 aces.
Hanescu missed his chance to come back at 4-2 down, Djokovic saving two break points before going on to take the first set.
Hanescu was the first to hold his serve in the second set, taking a brief 3-2 lead. From then on Djokovic took control and finished the match with sizzling crosscourt winner.
Croat Ivo Karlovic was beaten by Germany’s Philipp Kohlschreiber 7-6 4-6 6-1, despite serving 27 aces. The world number 30 lost the first set in a tie break 8-6, but came back to take the second.
However, Kohlschreiber cruised through the third set to claim his place in the last 16.
Top seed Rafael Nadal will play his opening match against wild card Marcos Baghdatis on Tuesday. Both players are former winners of the event.
Nadal has a perfect 11-0 record in Beijing, having won the title in 2005 and the Olympic Games gold medal in 2008.
In the women’s competition, Belgian Yanina Wickmayer, a semi-finalist at the US Open, was beaten 5-7 6-3 6-3 by Russian Alisa Kleybanova.