Li and Zheng continue China charge in Beijing

BEIJING, Sep 19 (Reuters) China's number one Li Na dropped four service games but still managed to labour through to the second round of the China Open with a 6-3 6-4 victory over Russian Vera Dushevina today.

Zheng Jie became the fourth Chinese to reach the second round when she downed American Jill Craybas 6-4 6-3, but her doubles partner Yan Zi crashed out 7-5 6-2 to Croatian qualifier Jelena Kostanic.

Li blew hot and cold in her one and a half hour contest, mixing a few brilliant winners with uncertain service and a host of unforced errors on the Centre Court at the Beijing Tennis Centre.

''Playing at home makes me feel nervous, it's very different from playing abroad,'' the 24-year-old seventh seed told reporters.

The world number 23 opened the match by surrendering her service with a double fault, won the next five games at a canter, stumbled again in the eighth before conjuring up a beautiful down the line winner to win the set.

Her problems continued in the second set where she broke the teenaged qualifier almost at will, but also gave up two service games and ended up scrambling through to a last 16 appointment with another Russian, Elena Vesnina.

''The first match is always the most difficult, especially against an opponent who has already played three matches in the qualifiers,'' added Li, whose new tattoo of a rose excited much interest among the local media.

FIRST TITLE The only previous meeting between Li and Dushevina came at Guangzhou in 2004, when the Chinese announced her return to fessional tennis after a two-year break by winning her first and only career WTA title as a 145th-ranked qualifier.

Since then she has become the first Chinese to reach the quarter-final of a grand slam, the first from her country to breach the world top 20 and led her country into the Fed Cup world group for the first time.

Zheng, who has already won two singles titles and two grand slam doubles crowns with Yan this year, showed few signs of the ankle problem that has dogged her in recent weeks against the experienced Craybas.

She wrapped up the first set with a stinging service return and came back from a break down in the second to set up a second round tie with former world number one Lindsay Davenport or Russian Anna Chakvetadze.

Yan, whose compatriots Sun Tiantian and Peng Shuai reached the second round yesterday, blamed over-eagerness for her defeat to Kostanic.

''I had plenty of chances but I made the wrong choices and let them all go,'' she said.

The top four seeds, led by France's world number one Amelie Mauresmo and last week's Bali champion Svetlana Kuznetsova of Russia, were given first round byes.

REUTERS DH KP1538