Caroline Wozniacki of Denmark returns the ball to Dominika Cibulkova of Slovakia at the Sydney International tennis tournament January 11, 2011. [Photo/Agencies]

SYDNEY - World number one Caroline Wozniacki brushed aside defeat in her first competitive match of the year at the Sydney International on Tuesday, saying she would be ready to go at the Australian Open next week.

The 20-year-old Dane, who had received a bye through the first round, went down 6-3 6-3 to Slovakia's Dominika Cibulova in a rain-disrupted match at the Sydney Olympic Park.

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Wozniacki, who won six tournaments last year to reach the pinnacle of the women's game, had lost to world number two Vera Zvonareva in a Hong Kong exhibition event before arriving in Sydney but said there was no problem with her form.

"It happens," she told reporters. "Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose. You need to learn from the losses.

"It's the first tournament of the year. I just want to get the match playing going. There were a few positive things in there that I can take out of it, and then I just need to work on the rest. But I'm confident that for Melbourne I'll be okay".

World number three Kim Clijsters had no such problems in her second round match, clinically dispatching Czech Barbora Zahlavova Strycova 6-1 6-4 before the rain started falling again.

Clijsters, who dropped just three games in her first round match, lost her first two service games in the second set but broke her opponent three times to set up a quarter-final against Victoria Azarenka or Shahar Peer.

Russian Zvonareva is also in second round action on Tuesday at the warm-up tournament for the year's first grand slam, which begins at Melbourne Park next Monday.