World number three Coco Gauff beat Ekaterina Alexandrova 7-5 6-3 in her debut at the China Open.

She extended her unbeaten run to 13, having won 19 of 20 matches since a first-round exit at Wimbledon and faces world number 48 Petra Martic next.

Elsewhere, Petra Kvitova criticised the scheduling after her 6-4 7-5 second-round loss to Liudmila Samsonova.

The Czech two-time Wimbledon champion had a late finish to her first-round match on Sunday against China's Wang Xiyu and was back in action on Monday.

She said on X, formerly known as Twitter: "Far from ideal to finish my match at the @ChinaOpen at 1am and then be back on the schedule at NB 5:30pm the next day when some first round matches had yet to be played.

"I have always played the sport with huge respect and rarely speak out, but this time I feel strongly enough to say that there *has* to have been a fairer option. Please do better for your players @WTA."

BBC Sport has approached the WTA for comment.

World number two Iga Swiatek reached the second round with a 6-4 6-3 win over Sara Sorribes Tormo.

In other first-round matches, fifth seed Elena Rybakina beat Qinwen Zheng 6-1 6-2 while Wimbledon finalist Ons Jabeur progressed after overcoming Ashlyn Krueger 6-3 6-4.