British number one Johanna Konta beat 16th seed Magdalena Rybarikova 6-3 7-5 in the first round of the Madrid Open.
Konta, 26, has reached only one quarter-final this season and lost to teenage Hungarian qualifier Fanny Stollar in Charleston last month.
But the world number 23, unseeded in the Spanish capital, beat Slovakia's Rybarikova in an hour and 59 minutes.
Simona Halep and Caroline Wozniacki - the top two players in the world rankings - secured comfortable wins.
World number one Halep, who has won this event in each of the past two years, needed only 51 minutes to beat Russia's Ekaterina Makarova 6-1 6-0.