American Alexandra Stevenson suffered a 6-2, 6-4 first-round defeat at the hands of third-seeded Swede Sofia Arvidsson Sunday on Day 1 of women's main draw action at The Racquet Club of Memphis.

Stevenson fell behind early in the second set but rallied to level at 4-4 before Arvidsson pulled away.

The former Wimbledon semifinalist, who needed a wild card to enter the main draw, was looking for her first match win of the season. Stevenson had played just two matches this year before Memphis, losing in the first round of qualifying at the ITF event in Rockford two weeks ago and in the first round of the main draw event of the ITF tournament in Midland last week.

Stevenson reached the Memphis final in 2002 and, in her only other appearance here, reached the second round in 2003. Stevenson reached a career-high ranking of No. 18 in 2002.

Arvidsson, ranked No. 45, reached the third round of the Australian Open last month, taking out No. 19 seed Dinara Safina 6-4, 6-0 in the second round.

In the only other main draw singles match Sunday, Slovakia's Martina Sucha blitzed Russian Tatiana Panova 6-1, 6-0 in just 50 minutes. In an error-prone performance Panova served up six double faults and failed to convert the three break points she held.