Teenage Canadian sensation Eugenie Bouchard has honed a game more suited to hard courts than to slow red clay.  Bouchard's heavy serve and punishing groundstrokes may adapt to any surface as she matures, however, and the second seed made a successful start to her European clay season in Portugal.  She had taken a wildcard into this WTA International event, where an intriguing first-round match against Alisa Kleybanova loomed.

A week ago in Stuttgart, Kleybanova had reached her first WTA quarterfinal since returning from Hodgkin's lymphoma.  She also had notched her first victory over a top-10 opponent (Petra Kvitova) in her comeback, punctuating her return to the top 100.  But the Russian could not bring her impressive Stuttgart form to Portugal, dropping serve five times in two sets.  Bouchard wasted little time in finishing off her struggling foe, dropping serve just once in the uneventful contest.  

If the Canadian wins her next match, she could face a sterner test from former Roland Garros champion Svetlana Kuznetsova or last week's first-time champion, Maria-Teresa Torro-Flor.  Both of those women have refined greater skills on clay than Bouchard, but neither has come close this year to equaling her success.

Another WTA star who has shone on clay, Samantha Stosur, fell meekly in Portugal to Swiss qualifier Timea Bacsinszky.  Stosur reached the Roland Garros final in 2010, falling to Francesca Schiavone, and she also finished runner-up at the Premier Five event in Rome three years ago.  Her kick serve and heavy topspin forehand make ideal weapons for a surface with a high bounce.  But Stosur would win just four games from a seemingly overmatched opponent, failing to take advantage of her top-four seed as she fell to 11-10 this year.  

Most of the other Portugal women's seeds advanced convincingly, however, including top seed Carla Suarez Navarro.  The same could not be said of the men's draw at this joint event, where all three seeds in action on Tuesday exited the tournament.  Most disappointing for home fans was the loss of top Portuguese man Joao Sousa, who squandered a one-set lead against Lorenzo Mayer.  This Argentine qualifier had reached a final on South American clay in February, having defeated Tommy Robredo, so this upset did not come as a shock.  And the Portuguese crowd found some consolation from the startling double bagel served by home wildcard Rui Machado to fifth seed Dmitry Tursunov.  

The most surprising men's result of the day probably came from fast-court specialist Lukasz Kubot, though.  An unseeded quarterfinalist at Wimbledon last year, Kubot toppled seventh seed Teymuraz Gabashvili just a week after the Russian had upset David Ferrer in Barcelona.  This match marked Gabashvili's top-50 debut, earned by the best start to a season of his career.  On the other hand, his high-risk, quick-strike style is hardly more suited to clay than Kubot's game, so expecting him to sustain his success on the slow red dirt might have asked too much.

Intriguing Wednesday matches include Kuznetsova's battle with Torro-Flor and an all-Spanish encounter pitting aging clay specialist Albert Montanes against third seed Marcel Granollers.