Cirstea, the fifth seed, fought off Swedish wild card Johanna Larsson 4-6, 6-2, 7-5 on the clay courts of Bastad Tennis Stadium. Pavlyuchenkova, the sixth seed, also had to rally to eliminate American Jill Craybas 3-6, 6-3, 6-3.
In other action, seventh-seeded Spaniard Carla Suarez Navarro defeated Slovakian Lenka Wienerova 6-0, 7-5; No. 8 Czech Iveta Benesova downed Poland's Urszula Radwanska 3-6, 6-2, 6-2; Russian Alla Kudryavtseva breezed by Italian Karin Knapp 6-1, 6-1; and Argentine Gisela Dulko ousted Poland's Marta Domachowska 6-4, 6-0.
The top seeds are Denmark's Caroline Wozniacki and Slovakian Dominika Cibulkova, a French Open semifinalist last month.
The winner of this week's inaugural event will pocket $37,000.
Copyright 2009 by United Press International.
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