The top seeds bowed out but Australian fans had something to cheer about with Samantha Stosur a first round winner at the Moorilla International.

Top-ranked Greek Eleni Daniilidou was forced to retire with a back strain, second seed Svetlana Kuznetsova was swept aside by Argentine youngster Ma Emilia Salerni and fellow Russian third seed Elena Likhovtseva also crashed out.

Stosur's successful summer rolled on when she overcame Hungarian Melinda Czink 6-4 6-1 in a match lasting 43 minutes.

The 19-year-old last week made the semi-finals of the women's hardcourt tournament on the Gold Coast before losing to eventual champion Ai Sugiyama.

The hard-hitting Queenslander now has a second round meeting with talented Colombian Fabiola Zuluaga, who at four is the highest ranked player remaining in the draw.

Daniilidou's coach Judith Sprenger was hopeful the world No.30 would still appear in next week's Australian Open.

But she will still miss at least four days of preparation after sustaining a lower back injury in her match against Italy's Tathiana Garbin.

In a swirling breeze, Daniilidou over-stretched while serving for the first set and needed a nine minute injury time out before ultimately conceding the match while trailing 5-7 0-2.

"She felt a lot of pain and then hurt it more," said Sprenger.

"She'll rest for four or five days and have intense physio therapy and should be all right again.

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