The round one encounter was postponed by a day after all of Monday's play in the South Coast town, a warm-up competition for Wimbledon, which begins next week, due to rain.

The pair had met twice before, with the Estonian, ranked 27th in the world, winning both times, though this was on clay, whereas Eastbourne was the pair's first grass-court meeting.

The first set was close, with the opening two games in particular being protracted as both players held on to their serves. After reaching 4:4 in games, Kontaveit won her serve, fending off a break-point from Kuznetsova, ranked 38th in the world, and went on to break her opponent's serve to take the set 6:4.

The second set went more in the Russian player's favor as she broke Kontaveit's serve early on, going on to win 6:3.

The deciding set, however, saw Kontaveit, 25, from Tallinn, take things up a gear, holding her serve and breaking her opponent's twice, to conclusively wrap things up 6:3.

She will face world number seven Bianca Andreescu (Canada) in round two.

Wimbledon starts next Monday and will see both Kontaveit and Kaia Kanepi in action. The draw is to be unveiled on June 25.

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