Osaka beaten in first match since Australian Open

Japanese tennis star loses 6-3, 6-3 to Frenchwoman Mladenovic

DUBAI: Naomi Osaka stumbled badly in her first match since winning the Australian Open and sacking her coach as the world number one went down in a flurry of errors to exit the Dubai Championships on Tuesday.

Dubai-based Frenchwoman Kristina Mladenovic claimed a 6-3, 6-3 victory to reach the third round as Osaka made 25 unforced errors.

The rout, which featured seven breaks of the Osaka serve, took barely an hour, sending Mladenovic into a Wednesday contest with Carla Suarez Navarro.

"I played pretty bad, you have days like that. You just have to find a way to, like, win no matter what the situation is," Osaka said. "(My serve) was a disaster. I haven't been practising well recently, it would go away during the matches. I was kind of counting on that — it didn't happen. But even if I don't win any matches for the rest of the year, I wouldn't say I'm concerned. I think I'm pretty young. I still feel like I have a lot to learn. After I lose a sort of bad match, I'm just looking forward to the next tournament."

The second set was riddled with seven consecutive breaks of serve before Mladenovic finished off the job with a winner to the empty court on match point.

Osaka stunned the tennis world last week by announcing her split from coach Sascha Bajin despite winning back-to-back Grand Slam titles at the US and Australian Opens.

She said earlier this week that she would not prioritise "success over happiness" when asked about the sacking, and she never looked like winning in Dubai as she also served five double faults.

Earlier on Tuesday, Simona Halep and Petra Kvitova both won their opening matches, while Elina Svitolina made a strong start to her bid for a third straight title.