Rodionova had no trouble dispatching the Kazakhstani 6-4, 6-4, but her dubious reward is a second-round meeting with world number one Caroline Wozniacki, who had a bye in the first round.
Meanwhile former Wimbledon champion Maria Sharapova made short work of her second-round opponent, thrashing Ekaterina Makarova 6-1, 6-1.
Having said on Sunday that women's tennis had improved its strength in depth in recent years and that the old days of breezing through the first couple of rounds were long gone, Sharapova disproved her own claims.
Her Russian compatriot was never in the match and only managed to hold serve once in each set.
"I played her last week in Madrid and we split sets and I won in three sets," Sharapova said.
"It was a pretty tough and long match and I certainly wanted to get the job done faster today."
Joining the former world number one in the third round was current number two Francesca Schiavone.
The French Open champion had few problems in seeing off American qualifier Christina McHale 6-3, 6-1.
In the men's competition, world number four Andy Murray was made to work in an error-strewn match before seeing off Belgian veteran Xavier Malisse 6-2, 2-6, 6-3 to reach the third round.
Seventh seed Tomas Berdych had little difficulty in dispatching Argentine Juan Monaco 6-2, 6-2.
French 16th seed Richard Gasquet was the first man through to the third round as he thrashed Russian qualifier Igor Andreev 6-1, 6-2.
Spanish ninth seed Nicolas Almagro also had few problems in his first round clash against Italian wild card Simone Bolelli, winning 6-0, 7-5.
But 14th seed Stanislas Wawrinka was made to battle all the way as he overcame another Italian wild card in Fabio Fognini 6-7, 6-2, 6-4.
It was not a good day for the hosts as yet another wild card, Flavio Cipolla, lost to former world number three Ivan Ljubicic 6-2, 6-3.
His compatriot Mario Cilic also reached the second round as he prevailed in the battle of big-serving Croatians with Ivo Karlovic retiring while trailing 6-4, 1-0.
It was not a good day for Asians as Japanese veteran Kimiko Date-Krumm lost 7-5, 6-2 to Czech Lucie Safarova and Chinese lucky loser Zheng Jie was beaten by Italian wild card Alberta Brianti 6-4, 7-5.
Another Italian wild card, Romina Oprandi, caused the upset of the day, knocking out Estonian 14th seed Kaia Kanepi 7-5, 3-6, 6-1.
There were also first-round victories for German 12th seed Andrea Petkovic and Russian 16th seed Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova.
-ABC/AFP
Tags: sport, tennis, italy First posted May 10, 2011 22:44:00
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