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Heather Watson brought a few smiles to the home crowd by beating Camila Giorgi 6-4 7-5 on a rain-interrupted day at the Aegon Classic.
The poor weather meant that just three of the five scheduled first-round matches were completed on Monday, with home-favourite Naomi Broady's contest against Daria Gavrilova and Carla Suarez Navarro's showdown with Elina Svitolina held over until Tuesday.
However, Watson was in action in Birmingham and progressed to round two with a hard-fought win against her Italian opponent.
Watson, beaten in the first round of the Nottingham Open last week, backed up a solid service game with varied strokes to clinch the first set against Giorgi.
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Neither player gave much away in the second, but it was Watson that made the breakthrough in game 11 before going on to serve out the match.
Seventh seed Madison Keys, making her first appearance since losing in round four of the French Open, battled past Timea Babos 7-6 (7-3) 6-4, while Jelena Ostapenko was a 7-6 (7-2) 6-1 victor over Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova.