Ju came to the Azerbaijan capital straight after defending her world title in a match in China and joined the tournament today.

She came up against Slovakia's Eva Repkova, who is 252 ranking points lower at 2312, but put in an underwhelming performance.

Ju almost set the game up for a draw as she opted for a Catalan opening before the game ended in threefold repetition after just 16 moves.

Sara Khadem, competing under the Spanish flag, suffered a loss to Indonesian Medina Warda Aulia in the women's tournament after making several early errors which allowed her opponent to create an advanced passer and dominate.

It is one of the first times that Khadem has competed under her new citizenship after she transferred federations from Iran last month.

The 26-year-old chose not to wear a hijab during the FIDE World Rapid and Blitz Chess Championships last December during protests against the Iranian Government.

After the tournaments, she bought a house in Spain and was awarded a residence visa in January.

Carlsen won as black in 44 moves in the open tournament against Georgia's Levan Pantsulaia.

Although Pantsulaia managed to hold his ground through the middle phase of the match, Carlsen gradually increased his positional advantage before taking the victory.

It marked a promising start for Carlsen who said he felt "a little bit rusty going in".