Eastbourne, England (Sports Network) - This week's top-three seeds --
Agnieszka Radwanska, Petra Kvitova and Caroline Wozniacki -- all suffered
opening-round upsets Tuesday at the Aegon International tennis event, a
final Wimbledon tune-up.
Bulgarian grass-court specialist Tsvetana Pironkova doused the world No. 3
Radwanska 6-2, 6-4, while Russian Ekaterina Makarova stunned the fourth-ranked
Kvitova 7-5, 6-4, and rising American Christina McHale took out the world No.
7 Wozniacki 6-1, 6-7 (7-9), 6-4 at Devonshire Park. The capable Makarova
captured the title here two years ago.
Radwanska was the Eastbourne champion in 2008; Kvitova is the reigning
Wimbledon champ and was last year's Eastbourne runner-up to France's Marion
Bartoli; and the former No. 1 Wozniacki captured this tournament in 2009.
The reigning Eastbourne champ Bartoli avoided the Day-2 upset bug by
leveling Romanian Sorana Cirstea 6-2, 6-2. Next up for the French slugger will
be Canadian Aleksandra Wozniak on Wednesday.
In other action involving seeds, No. 5 German left-hander Angelique Kerber
overcame Russian qualifier Elena Vesnina 3-6, 6-0, 7-5, No. 6 Czech Petra
Cetkovska came back to beat lucky-loser and fellow countrywoman Andrea
Hlavackova 3-6, 6-2, 6-1, and No. 7 Czech Lucie Safarova overcame Hungarian
Timea Babos 3-6, 6-3, 7-6 (8-6).
Additional first-round wins came for Czech veteran Klara Zakopalova, Russian
Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova, British qualifier Laura Robson and wild card Heather
Watson, and Canadian qualifier Stephanie Dubois.
In some other second-round play on Wednesday, eighth-seeded Slovak Daniela
Hantuchova, the 2004 Eastbourne runner-up, will face Austrian Tamira Paszek
and McHale will take on her fellow 20-year-old Pavlyuchenkova.
The winner of this $637,000 tournament will collect $107,000.
The Sports Network