Amelie Mauresmo emerged from a potentially difficult first round match at the Qatar Open with a 7-6 6-3 win over Germany's Sabine Lisicki.

Mauresmo has slipped out of the top 20 following a poor run of form that began 11 months ago after she underwent an emergency appendectomy.

This season, after reaching the quarter-finals at Gold Coast and withdrawing from Sydney with a thigh strain, she lost to Casey Dellacqua in the third round of the Australian Open and then fell in the quarter-finals of the Paris indoor event.

By contrast, 18-year old Lisicki earned her first win over a top 20 opponent by beating Dinara Safina to reach the third round of the Australian Open, and then defeated Lindsay Davenport in a Fed Cup tie.

"It was a good first match," Mauresmo said. "In the first match you don't really expect to play your best tennis, especially when you haven't got many matches behind you, so I'm just happy about the way it went today."

Mauresmo showed flashes of the ability that had taken her to number one in the rankings and to two grand slam titles but she failed to impose herself on her less experienced opponent.

The 14th seed from France held a set point at 6-5 but netted a routine return before taking the set on a tiebreak. Then, after losing an early break in the second, she broke Lisicki from 40-0 to lead 4-3.

"I thought I started pretty slow with some up and downs," said Mauresmo. "I was doing a few mistakes here and there that I was not really happy about, but I thought it got a little bit better and the serve was not too bad today.

"The confidence is growing every time I have a win I guess. It's definitely not at the highest it can be, but I'm fighting. I'm out there to find it back and that's what I'm trying to do."

Russia's Nadia Petrova is another top player who is struggling of late, with only three wins in her seven matches coming into the Qatar Open.

Her troubles continued on Monday when the number 10 seed retired with a stomach upset after losing the first set 6-2 and when leading the second 2-1 against Spain's Anabel Medina Garrigues.

Sybille Bammer of Austria, seeded 15, defeated Japan's Aiko Nakamura 6-1 6-3, and 16th seeded Agnieszka Radwanska of Poland followed up her recent tournament victory in Pattaya with a 7-5 6-0 win over Akiko Morigami of Japan.

Shahar Peer became the first Israeli to play a tour event in the Gulf region when she beat Slovenia's Andreja Klepac 6-3 6-4.

Peer had been prevented by the Israeli government from playing in the region while she was performing national service. That service, administrative duties between tournaments, has ended and she is free to compete where she wants.

The number 12 seed said she was pleased at the way she had been welcomed at the tournament despite the heightened tensions between Israel and its neighbouring Muslim countries.

"I find the people are really nice here, and everything is normal. It's even nicer than some other tournaments," said Peer.

"I'm not coming here to help the politics of course, but if by me playing in this tournament it can help anything in the world, for peace or anything, I'll be really happy."

Reuters