Heather Watson feels back at home in Hobart but Johanna Konta loses

She next faces fourth seed Monica Niculescu

Heather Watson saved nine out of 10 break points in her win over Teliana Pereira (Getty)

Defending champion Heather Watson eased through the first round of the Hobart International with a 6-3, 6-0 win over Brazil’s Teliana Pereira.

The British No 2 won the first set but she did not have it all her own way against a player ranked seven places above her at 46th in the world.Watson broke serve twice but faced 10 break points on her own serve, with Pereira only able to convert one of them.

The Guernsey player broke in the opening game of the second set and again in the third, and a hard-fought hold took her 4-0 up. Yet another break followed and Watson served out a comprehensive victory. She next faces fourth seed Monica Niculescu.

Meanwhile, Johanna Konta is still waiting for her first win of 2016 after a first-round defeat to Dominika Cibulkova. The British No 1 slipped to a 7-6, 7-5 loss and will be regretting missed chances as she wasted five first-set points and failed to capitalise on three breaks of the Slovakian’s serve in the second.

It looked like being a far more routine defeat for Konta as she lost the first four games of the match. But from 5-1 down she mounted an impressive recovery to take the first set to a tiebreak, which she led 6-1 before Cibulkova reeled off seven straight points.

The second set contained seven breaks of serves, with Cibulkova gaining a fourth in the 11th game before serving out for the match.