BEIJING: World number three Venus Williams lost to Russian teen-ager Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova for the second week in a row to exit the $6.6 million China Open with a 3-6 6-1 6-4 second round defeat Monday.

The world number 39 simply refused to be awed by Williams and dominated the final two sets of the 132-minute contest to claim her second win over the seven-times grand slam winner after last Monday's upset in Tokyo.

"She played really well, unfortunately sometimes I made errors too soon in the play," Williams, 29, said in a brief news conference. "Twelve double faults didn't help me today, I wasn't counting those, though."

Williams had an inkling of the fight on her hands when her 18-year-old opponent took her to six deuces as she was serving for the first set.

"She started way aggressive today," Pavlyuchenkova told reporters. "She wanted to kill me, I guess."

BRIEF WOBBLE

The Russian raced through the second set, wobbled a bit losing her serve to love at 5-2 in the third, but held her nerve to serve out for the match two games later.

"I had nothing to lose," Pavlyuchenkova added. "I just tried to move her around as much as I could, just hit as hard as I could in the court and just enjoy the match."

Sixth seed Svetlana Kuznetsova joined her compatriot in the third round with a 6-2 6-1 victory over Spain's Anabel Medina Garrigues.

World number one Dinara Safina, who must at least match Serena Williams's progress in Beijing to retain the top ranking, plays China's Zhang Shuai in the second round later on Monday.

Earlier on center court, Novak Djokovic shrugged off the effects of jet lag to become the first seed to reach the men's second round with a 6-3 7-5 victory over Victor Hanescu.

The Serbian ultimately justified his second seeding but struggled to impose his game on his 1.98-meter (6ft 6in) Romanian opponent throughout the absorbing, if not high quality, contest.

A crosscourt winner for his fifth break of the match finally sealed Djokovic's place in the last 16 but he will need more consistency if he is to win a third title of the year this week.

"That's the first round, you have to get used to the ups and downs," said the 22-year-old, who was playing his first match since his U.S. Open semi-final defeat to Roger Federer.

"I am aware I need to raise my level of performance to get far in the tournament. I'm still a bit jet-lagged, I think you could see that in the second set."

In other men's first round action, Spain's Tommy Robredo thrashed German Benjamin Becker 6-2 6-1.

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