Fed Cup player from Pretoria and former pupil of Hoërskool Waterkloof, Ilze Hattingh, was the first South African to enter the second round of the Digicall Futures 3 which started in Stellenbosch on Tuesday.

Hattingh, seeded 3, struggled in the opening set but ended solidly in beating fellow South African Huibre-Mare Botes 6-4 6-0.

Botes broke serve in the opening game of the match but Hattingh promptly broke back and then broke her opponents serve again in the fourth game and raced to a 5-3 lead.

But Botes wasn’t going to give up the fight easy. She broke Hattingh in the ninth game to trail 4-5. But the fight was short lived. Hattingh broke back to win the set 6-4 and didn’t lose a game after that in closing out the match.

Top seeded Naomi Totka of Hungary who is in the same half of the draw as Hattingh also opened her tournament campaign on a winning note beating Erika Vogelsang of Netherlands 6-3 6-3

In the bottom half of the women’s draw second seed Francesca Stephenson of Britain was shocked by unseeded compatriot Gabriella Taylor.

Taylor, who reached the semi-finals of last week’s Digicall Futures 2 beat Stephenson 6-3 6-4.

In the men’s singles, top seed Pascal Brunner of Austria battled in the opening round against fiery Italian Fabio Mercuri. The Austrian overcame a strong challenge from his Italian opponent finally winning 7-5 7-6 (4).

However sixth seed Brit, James Marsalek was forced to retire due to injury against Lucas Catarina of Monaco.

South Africa’s Nik Scholtz and Lloyd Harris, seeded 2 and 4 respectively will open their campaign on Wednesday as will sixth women’s seed Madrie le Roux also of South Africa.