(Sports Network) - Russian stars Dinara Safina and Elena Dementieva highlighted Monday's opening-round winners at the $600,000 Medibank International, a final Australian Open tune-up.

The second-seeded Safina cruised past Romanian Sorana Cirstea 6-2, 6-1, while last week's Auckland champion Dementieva dropped fellow Russian Ekaterina Makarova 7-5, 6-1 on the hardcourts at Sydney International Tennis Centre.

Safina was last year's French Open and Olympic runner-up, while Dementieva, seeded third this week, captured the gold medal in Beijing last year and is fresh off her title match victory at the ASB Classic.

Up next for Safina will be fellow Russian Vera Dushevina, while Dementieva will tangle with Slovakian wild card Jarmila Gajdosova on Tuesday.

A Day-2 upset occurred when France's Alize Cornet took out seventh-seeded Russian Nadia Petrova 6-2, 6-4, while eighth-seeded Dane Caroline Wozniacki avoided an upset by pasting Slovakian Dominika Cibulkova 6-1, 6-2.

Also on Monday, Russian Alisa Kleybanova drubbed compatriot Maria Kirilenko 6-2, 6-2, while Slovakian Daniela Hantuchova humbled Czech qualifier Klara Zakopalova 6-3, 6-0. Italian Karin Knapp replaced last week's Brisbane titlist Victoria Azarenka in the draw here and lost to the aforementioned Gajdosova 6-4, 6-2. Azarenka pulled out with a viral illness.

Other opening-round wins came for Russian qualifier Vera Dushevina, Italian Sara Errani, British qualifier Melanie South, Estonian Kaia Kanepi, Japanese Ai Sugiyama and Spaniard Anabel Medina Garrigues. Errani will face top-seeded U.S. Open champ Serena Williams in the second round.

Retired Belgian great Justine Henin beat Russian Svetlana Kuznetsova in last year's finale here.

The 2009 Sydney champ will pocket $98,500.



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