MOSCOW, Jan 17 Russian Veronika Kudermetova defeated American Claire Liu in the first round the Grand Slam tournament — the Australian Open tennis championship (Australian Open). The meeting ended with a score of 6:4, 6:4 in favor of the Russian woman, who has the 28th seed number. In another match of the day, the Russian woman Varvara Gracheva lost to the Italian Lucia Bronzetti — 6 :3, 2:6, 3:6. Belarusian Victoria Azarenka turned out to be stronger than the Hungarian Panna Udvardi — 6:3, 6:1.
