Athens Olympics doubles champion Li Ting failed to progress in women's singles event at the US$600,000 WTA Qatar Open.

Li reached the main draw after fierce clashes from the qualifying round, only to meet a strong Maria Kirilenko, winner of last year's China Open.

Li lost the game 6-2, 6-4.

To her comfort, Li and Olympic partner Sun Tiantian won their doubles opener with ease.

They defeated A. Bachmann and K. Nagy 6-1,6-3.

Another Chinese doubles specialist Zheng Jie, the newly crowned Australian Open doubles champion, also lost her singles first round: 6-0, 6-1, to Russian Svetlana Kuznetsova.

(CRI English March 1, 2006)