Third seed Mary Pierce lost her first-round match to Iroda Tulyaganova of Uzbekistan in the $170,000 Strasbourg Open yesterday.
The defeat comes as a blow for the French player, less than a week before she is due to defend her title at the French Open, which starts on Monday in Paris.
Pierce, No.17 in the world in the WTA rankings, has been dogged by poor performances and injuries in recent months. Tulyaganova won 3-6, 6-3, 6-1.
Also crashing out was top seed Amanda Coetzer of South Africa, who lost her second-round match to Japan's Ai Sugiyama 6-4, 6-4. Israel's Anna Smashnova dispatched last year's winner, Croatia's Silvija Talaja, 6-2, 6-4.
l Guest player Maria Jose Martinez eliminated the fifth seeded Austrian Barbara Schett, while the sixth seed, American Lisa Raymond, dismissed compatriot Jennifer Hopkins in the first round of the $170,000 WTA Spanish Open yesterday.
Playing at Madrid's Club de Campo clay court, Spaniard Martinez took the first set 7-5, lost the second 6-2, but recouped in the third 6-4 to win.
Later, Raymond came back from losing the first set 6-3 to take the next two on 6-2 scores.
France's Sandrine Testud, the tournament's No.3 seed, made it to the second round by beating Spaniard Gala Leon
2-6, 6-3, 6-0.
Spaniards Maria-Angeles Montolio, Magui Serna, and Maria Antonio Sanchez Lorenzo also made it to the second round with ease.
Montolio, the eighth seed, shot past Argentina's Mariana Diaz-Oliva in two sets. Serna repeated the feat against Elena Tatarkova, of the Ukraine. Sanchez Lorenzo had to go to a third set to clinch victory over Sweden's Asa Carlsson.
In other matches, Zimbabwe's Cara Black ousted Colombian Catalina Castano, Paraguay's Rossana de los Rios eliminated Spain's Cristina Torrens, and Italian Rita Grande knocked out compatriot Valentina Sassi.
l Pete Sampras's brief revival on clay courts stalled yesterday when Russia's Marat Safin overpowered the former world No.1 7-6, 7-5 at the World Team Cup men's tennis tournament.
Sampras, currently fifth in the ATP Entry System rankings, was beaten by a much more consistent performance from second-placed Safin.
Russia's Yevgeny Kafelnikov showed signs of a clear return to form when he beat Jan-Michael Gambill of the United States 6-4, 5-7, 6-2.
Kafelnikov played his best game in months, wrapping up the first set with a combination of strong serving and keen down-the-line judgment.
However, Gambill fought hard and came back to take the second set.
Kafelnikov imposed himself on the third set, thrilling the crowd with a series of drop shots at the net where he ruled supreme.
In the day's other matches, there was a win apiece in two France v Argentina encounters. Sebastian Grosjean, ranked tenth, easily beat Argentine left-hander Franco Squillari 6-1, 7-5, but Mariano Puerta beat Arnaud Clement 6-3, 6-1.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article